One Last Chance

It has come to my attention in the last few weeks that some of you have formed opinions about me that are now being voiced. Let me make one thing adimatley clear. This is your chance to say your piece and get the fuck out of my life. Some of you have more information than others, some of you feed on second hand stories and a bad temper but what none of you have is the truth because not a single one of you were there that night. Not one of you witnessed what happened. I don't expect any one of you to take one side or another or even to care. What I do excpect is that you conduct yourselves with a little dignity and self respect and stop acting like children. We're all adults here.

While i thought this time I had escaped the social riducule and questioning, apparently I hadn't. Aaron and I have reached a point where I don't talk to him, not about this because he is, well, wrong. But, he is entitled to his opinion and so far as i'm concerned, as long as he keeps it to himself during conversations with me about other matters, we have no problems and will function just fine. However, some of you, it seems, see fit to pry into places you don't belong and have no basis to understand.

There isn't a person I know who could form a truely educated opinion as to whether I cheated on Mike with Colin other than myself because there isn't another person who knows how i feel and felt. While you are welcome to your opinions, in my favor or not, they are ignorant ones because you cannot know the truth. Furthermore, for those of you whom I have chosen never to speak to on the matter, you can't have any idea or even impression because to this day you have no idea what happened.

I have made parts of this public and parts of it very private. You all saw my tyrade on Colin. While I don't have to justify myself to you, explaining may be an important part of the following exersize. That was a pretty low point. Not my lowest, but not a good one either. At this moment, things are making a turn for the better. The major issue that I was dealing with then I feel like i have a solid handle on now; how Colin, someone i trusted entirely for years, could do that of all things. It boggled my mind for the longest time. For now, at least, I think i have a handle on why it happened and it was something I ignored for months preceeding the incident because I didn't want it to be true. It came out of a conversation with Bethe of all people initally, and then subesquently, one with Aaron. Colin didn't come into the situation intending it to be rape. What he intended, i think (one must understand I haven't talked directly to him about this matter), was instead, to "make a move" if you will, on someone he'd had a crush on for a time. At that point, it became a failure in communication. I was not forceful enough at all, and I will accept full responsibility for that, and, in some ways, however unintentionally, I led Colin on for months proceeding. I simply didn't realize that he could possibly misinterpret me being myself, I assumed that he knew well that he and i were friends. It should have come as no shock to him that I was seriously involved with someone, being that that person was his best friend.

I've forgiven him as much as I ever will for what happened that night, and I'm working on forgiving myself. I don't mean to say that I let him off the hook, what he did was still wrong and I hope that those of you involved have learned a valuable lesson; no, in any form or severity, is not something to be taken lightly.

I don't take full blame for the situation, nor do I think he should have to accept it either. We both made mistakes, and in the course of that lost a friendship that meant so much more to me than I think anyone realizes. I didn't think that after Mike accepted the events, and to my understanding, that i did not want, ask for, or enjoy any of the advances that anyone else would fall casualty to this. Apparently I was mistaken. In that light, I'm telling everyone this right now: I will not continue to accept unsolicited onslaughts and attacks against my character. Tonight during the course of a conversation, which you doubtless know was with Nate, he said something cruel, uncalled for, and entirely out of line. You are all welcome to your own opinions of the situation but I refuse to have them spewed out at me in the middle of completely unrelated discussions. If i ask your for input, its my fault, I asked for it. If you don't think you can hold your tongue, or no longer wish to, be my guest to disappear from my life, block me, tell me to fuck off, whatever you have to do, but for everyone involved, do it now...or later...just don't resort to childish digs and insults.