Good Faith, Bad Faith

[UpsideDown]

So, when this whole issue came up, my husband joined the forum, just to have someone to talk to about the whole thing. After a little pushing, I joined as well, and in order to keep our profiles and perspectives separate, we agreed to stay out of one another's posts and threads. We could and would read them, if we felt like it (except under specific sets of of circumstances), but didn't comment, because his issues and questions for this group are not my issues and questions for this group.

As with many people in the early stages of this, I've been feeling hurt/confused/alone and have tried to explain the situation I'm in to the best of my ability. I don't always know the right terms, or correct phrasings for this community, but I've done my best to show good faith in being willing to learn about this by coming here, reading, going to local workshops, etc.

In an astounding show of bad faith, however, someone in my real world has come here, searched both me and my husband out, read our upset and sometimes lost posts that are not always perfect in their vocabulary, and then this information has become somewhat public knowledge. The reason all my doubts, fear, anger, insecurity were being parsed here was because I wanted to understand them better and be able to present a more emotionally-functional person (in this realm) to the person I care about do much, as I gained the knowledge. I'm not exactly sure whose idea it was, but considering it goes hand in hand with sharing some of the most open and vulnerable emails I've ever sent with a third party (who does not know or like me) after I have repeatedly said that I do not appreciate my personal information being over-shared, I find this a breach that may be irreparable.

As an aside to the mods...should you perhaps consider offering the option of allowing users to delete their own threads?

[Marcus]

First, "Internet Privacy" is an oxymoron. The idea of keeping something which has been put on the internet a secret is a myth. Anything which cannot, under any circumstances, be shared with the world should NEVER be put on the internet in any fashion.

That being said, who do you know that would seek you out (leaving out the question of "how did they even know to look for you here?"), figure out what your screen name is, snoop through your old posts, and then *expose* you to the world? That person sounds like an evil nemesis who has serious mental health issues and I would consider them a danger to myself and my family. OR, it's shared childish drama between you and one of your friends (I don't know you, so I have no idea which it is).

That's some crazy shit, either way.

[UpsideDown]

Originally Posted by Marcus

First, "Internet Privacy" is an oxymoron. The idea of keeping something which has been put on the internet a secret is a myth. Anything which cannot, under any circumstances, be shared with the world should NEVER be put on the internet in any fashion.

I'm aware. Having TOLD the few people who know this is a journey I have started that I joined a forum, and would appreciated their not getting involved, I'm upset that they went through the work to do it.

Originally Posted by Marcus

That being said, who do you know that would seek you out (leaving out the question of "how did they even know to look for you here?"), figure out what your screen name is, snoop through your old posts, and then *expose* you to the world? That person sounds like an evil nemesis who has serious mental health issues and I would consider them a danger to myself and my family. OR, it's shared childish drama between you and one of your friends (I don't know you, so I have no idea which it is).

That's some crazy shit, either way.

Right. These two people knew we were on an internet forum (the woman in the signature below and brilliant friend). I'm unsure how they found this one, or which of them initiated it, but it seems to have been sleuthy-evil-nemesis type work to figure out the screen name and go through my very few postings. The point didn't seem to be to out me as poly, but to take what was being processed here and make it fodder for their conversations? To pick apart my word choices and show how I have no respect for the woman I adore because I find "hobbies" as a concept something I do not have time for, and she enjoys hers? I'm not sure if it is a protective tendency on his part, curiosity on hers or what.

If her idea, I can't seem to find malicious intent (trying to understand my POV is understandable), but that doesn't mesh with her then forwarding over all of my emails after I've asked that she only share them with her primary guy. If it was his idea? He contacted me through FB to do introductions, it popped up on my chat thing, we talked and I answered all the questions he asked in as honest a fashion as I could (as he is a close friend of hers). Apparently, he then went back, forwarded the chat to her, said he thinks I'm all kinds of a not-worth-it, and proceeded to make a good deal of fun at my expense, to her.

To say I am hurt is an understatement. Shocked, really.

[Marcus]

Originally Posted by UpsideDown

To say I am hurt is an understatement. Shocked, really.

Balls. That is, indeed, some crazy childish bullshit.

Get away from these strange high school people and find yourself some adult friends. They have "outed" themselves, be thankful and move on.

[opalescent]

So cute girl forwarded your email/posts to a male friend that is not her primary partner? They then figured out who you were here and he got buddy-buddy with you on FB too? And one or both posted stuff from here or talked to others about stuff here, etc.? Did I get that right?

If so, yeah I agree with Marcus. The guy may be malicious as might be cute girl. It is more likely she is clueless and has poor ability to judge friends. Either way, they showed you who they really were.

[UpsideDown]

Originally Posted by opalescent

So cute girl forwarded your email/posts to a male friend that is not her primary partner?

Yes. She even goes out of her way to let me know when she's sharing the emails with primary BF, to the point where I've just started CCing him on the emails so he can read them or not. The consent for that was already both implicit and explicit, but that made it clearer, I thought. Apparently, she was forwarding them to OtherDude, with whom she is not involved, after being asked specifically not to share deeply personal information without checking first.

Originally Posted by opalescent

They then figured out who you were here and he got buddy-buddy with you on FB too? And one or both posted stuff from here or talked to others about stuff here, etc.? Did I get that right?

Neither seems to be a member here, that I can see. Just came and "stalked" (his words). When he sent me a FB friend request I had no idea he'd be shadowing my life over here, so I talked to him, and he apparently "played up the charm" so I'd be more willing to chat with him. It worked. I liked the guy (as far as I like friends-of-my-friends-on-the-internet). We had two short conversations, and that was that.

Originally Posted by opalescent

If so, yeah I agree with Marcus. The guy may be malicious as might be cute girl. It is more likely she is clueless and has poor ability to judge friends. Either way, they showed you who they really were.

She's not a malicious person. I've known her long enough to know that. She just seems unable or unwilling to keep anything I say to her confidential. That's going to be an issue, both in business and in friendship. Him? I have no idea. I can't imagine why one would go to so much trouble, including misquoting me here, to try and make me look bad simply because one does not hold the same world-view as another person.

[UpsideDown]

Originally Posted by Marcus

Get away from these strange high school people and find yourself some adult friends. They have "outed" themselves, be thankful and move on.

Easier said than done, I'm afraid. The actual perpetrator of the snooping and asshattery? I can avoid him until the cows come home. I haven't unfriended him on facebook yet because he'll know something is up, but when she and I have the talk about this, I firmly plan to call him out on his shit, and publicly.

Her? I work with her, up until tomorrow it has been an every day thing, becoming a much less often thing as of this week. We're still in school together and I'm trying to see if there's a way for it to taper off in a less explosive manner, where I can confront her about it when it doesn't negatively effect me in on a work/education level the way it has on a personal one.

The hardest thing is that I kind of like some of her friends, and they've been so kind welcoming me into their social circle...and giving that up when they're really the only people I hang with will be hard. Ah well, clean breaks and all.

DH is encouraging me to bring this to her primary BF, though. He may or may not already know about it, but he's much more the honest and straight-forward, linear type...and if he doesn't know, DH feels he deserves to. As DH says, if he found out I was lying to/mocking one of my closest friends, he'd want to know, and he'd be worried about it. Obviously if BF and I weren't friends already, I wouldn't even consider it, but we are, so... Plus, I'm afraid he'll take it poorly and they'll break up, and then she'll blame me, which will just make our fall out that much worse.

Ugh.

[opalescent]

It's been my experience that folks with cutegirl's personality don't understand everyone not being as open as they are. They also tend not to get privacy or keeping things in confidence. I am glad cutegirl is not malicious but - again in my experience - folks like her can be easily manipulated by those who are. I don't know why those personality traits seem to go hand in hand with lack of discretion but they seem to, at least in my life. So I don't tell them anything I wouldn't want the world to know. And I am generally not close to people like that.

You are already close and intertwined personally and professionally. I guess I would prefer a rip the band aid off fast approach personally. Tell her why you are hurt, what her actions did to you. Tell her exactly why you are ramping down or ending the friendship. Don't do it expecting her to change. She won't. She might not even see that her actions were inappropriate. Do it to get your pain and hurt in the open and out of your system. Defriend malicious guy but don't engage further. There is no point in that. If pressed you could say that he showed you who he really is and you are not interested in any interactions with him.

I don't see the point of telling cutegirl's primary. Unless it's a brand new relationship he already knows she is incapable of keeping secrets. You may want to tell him why you are slowing down/ending the friendship with her especially as you and he are friends. But that's more of a 'straight from the horse's mouth' kind of thing.

[UpsideDown]

Originally Posted by opalescent

It's been my experience that folks with cutegirl's personality don't understand everyone not being as open as they are. They also tend not to get privacy or keeping things in confidence. I am glad cutegirl is not malicious but - again in my experience - folks like her can be easily manipulated by those who are...And I am generally not close to people like that.

I've never really had anyone in my life with her kind of personality before, so I have zero experience with it. The part of me that gives people the benefit of the doubt wants to start making excuses for her in this, excuse it as venting...something. Anything. Blaming malicious OtherGuy seems easy enough, but when I accidentally found the hurtful information, I didn't go snooping through months of conversations. I felt that would have been a breach, even though what I'd stumbled upon was them discussing the intentional misuse of my personal information.

Originally Posted by opalescent

You are already close and intertwined personally and professionally.

And we get more so every day, even if we see each other less. We are asked to vouch for each other as colleagues on a nearly daily basis...it is a very interdependent professional working relationship. I'm not really sure how this will impact the new job we both started this week.

Originally Posted by opalescent

I guess I would prefer a rip the band aid off fast approach personally. Tell her why you are hurt, what her actions did to you. Tell her exactly why you are ramping down or ending the friendship. Don't do it expecting her to change. She won't. She might not even see that her actions were inappropriate. Do it to get your pain and hurt in the open and out of your system.

I'm having a miserably hard time telling her anything, partially because of he two reasons outlined above, and partially because I can go through the whole day and not remember until I have something sensitive to tell her. Until those particular moments crop up, it just doesn't seem real that she'd behave that way, so I finally have my friend back after two months of rocky hell. I am, selfishly, loathe to give that up. I know I need to, I just think I'd prefer letting it dissipate and become cordial as opposed to entailing the explosion that will come if she's confronted (especially as she probably won't see that she did anything wrong).

Unless, of course, malicious stalker asshole comes 'round to check on me here again. If he does, I'm sure he'll let her know that I know about it. Whether or not he correctly quotes me or not, as he hasn't before, must wait to be seen. He might see it and feel like there's not a way to out me for knowing without outing himself for being a tool, or he might tell her and she'll never let me know, but just draw away herself. No idea.

The part of me that isn't an incurable and curmudgeonly old man just hopes it magically resolves itself and goes away. I can hope, right?

Originally Posted by opalescent

Defriend malicious guy but don't engage further. There is no point in that. If pressed you could say that he showed you who he really is and you are not interested in any interactions with him.

Seriously, fuck that guy. I've stopped interacting with him already, but am looking for an excuse, any excuse, to unfriend him. When I have one (this explodes, I cull out people I don't talk to again, something), he's gone. If it is due to this exploding, I do plan on telling him what kind of terrible rabid asshat he is.

Originally Posted by opalescent

I don't see the point of telling cutegirl's primary. Unless it's a brand new relationship he already knows she is incapable of keeping secrets. You may want to tell him why you are slowing down/ending the friendship with her especially as you and he are friends. But that's more of a 'straight from the horse's mouth' kind of thing.

CG's primary is trying to figure out some important relationship stuff with her, and has been asking for my advice lately. I've been giving it to him, with my belief that she is a) trustworthy and b) considerate of others. When we were all out this weekend, BF asked me what was up, because he could tell there was a difference, and I told him I'd talk to him later. If he didn't know me so well, didn't ask for advice, and wasn't such a good guy, I probably wouldn't engage.

Fuck. This situation sucks all kinds of balls.

[UpsideDown]

So, primary BF corralled me, and I explained the situation to him. He told me he couldn't, in good faith, keep why I was angry from her for long, despite my wishes. I said I understood his perspective, and appreciated his honesty. I told him I was sorry to lose him as a friend, as our actual (utterly platonic) relationship was just getting fun. We walked back to their house, and I told her why I was angry.

I told her that I only expect, only require, two things from my friends. Honesty and integrity. She'd violated both of those things and so I could not trust her. This meant that the friendship was over. I would have liked to let it fizzle on its own, as I had suggested when I first told her I had a crush on her, as that could have allowed for a more comfortable casual set of interactions, but that apparently this needed to be hashed out right this very second. I used her words from the conversation to remind her of the things she'd said, told her I could not abide duplicity and two-faced-ness, and that I was very sorry that the friendship had come to mean so very little to her that she couldn't just be straightforward about anything.

She told me that it wasn't meant as malicious, that she'd been trying to process a whole bunch of other things and then my stuff on top of it, and that she hadn't meant to be hurtful (not a real apology, by the way) and that the friendship didn't mean little to her. It meant a lot, but that she could see there was nothing she could say while dashing off to work that could fix this now.

I said there was nothing she could say that would repair this, period. She then promised to get off of my phone contract as soon as possible because "she didn't want to be beholden to me." Christ, she owes me a real fucking apology, 3 months of a phone bill and like $300...and that hadn't even fucking occurred to me until she brought it up. That wasn't the fucking point, and I told her so. Then I left, she went inside to change for work and BF and DH went out for drinks.

I went home, where I am now, and did the first immature thing in this situation I could do. I posted the below on the forum-stalker's FB page:
"I hope you practice a better shade of confidentiality and respect for privacy in your job than you do when meddling in the lives of your friends." Then I tagged her in it. It took him about an hour to unfriend me, but hey...he came to me, violated my requests for information not to be shared, and was an abject dick. I don't feel too bad for him. I screenshotted it in case it comes up later.

I think this ends our little adventure into this world, but I thank you all for your advice, support and information. This would have been harder without the frames of reference.