It went wrong, Eva.
I'm not happy with the way things turned out. You got mad at me over something stupid, I refused to talk to you because of it. I guess we were both headstrong enough for it to just stop functioning.
I remember when you were the one person I wanted to talk to the most. I guess a lot of people have had that honor.
You said something exceptionally callous to me one day when I was being a dumb shit teenager. I'm not insulting you, you apologized for it, and I accepted that. But that moment, I suppose, was really the epitome of my internet existence.
I never have guy friends online. If you look at my best friends on the internet through time, just look at them - the last guy was probably mid 1990s. In recent years, it was Alma, then Keruri, Erika, Jen, Cre, yourself, Katy, and presently, Claudia. Usually they grow away. It's always an older woman that I get to be friends with.
Which was a bit of a pride thing for a while, that I associated with people older than me seamlessly, but it was also a worry. When does this dumbshit high school stuff start pissing people off? How much can others take of it when I don't care for it at all? Well, apparently, you didn't either.
A lot of people could write a letter like this and feel remorse that they grew apart. That they were interested in different things, and what not. Me, I'm too hard-headed for that.
I think you're a different person than I once imagined you to be.
I think... at that forum, there was such a bitter division that I had trouble resolving either side. You sort of straddled that line there, and I couldn't deal with that. Now, I know what you're thinking. It was a personality difference, and I sort of catalyzed that division. But no, it was an ideological difference. I see two very distinct groups of people who came out of that place; community-oriented and not. I don't know what it is that separates the two. Common interest, or style of interest, maybe. Probably not. Communication style, whatever. I can't really tell what made that difference. But those who I retained don't seem terribly community-focused, and some of the fears I always had were when friends fell too far to that side.
So I guess my conclusion is this.
When it came down to it, my contrary actions about the community was hating everything it stood for - embracing e-drama, general interest threads, love over cognition - but loving a few of the people on its fringes. Most of the people I kept close to me understood this and either shared or empathized a bit with that cynicism. But even if you said so, it doesn't seem like you ever really got me - and therefore, when I'm outside that community, I'm outside you. That's really unfortunate. You're really a decent person.
But, for the record, the moment I decided to quit the forum was the moment you told me how hard you had been fighting for me behind closed doors. At the same time, because that capped a plea for cooperation in following the rules, that was the same moment I realized that there wasn't much between us anymore.