I was going to stay out of this...
but hey, it'll probably be fun to be the most hated person on the forum, and there are points that need to be raised and addressed here.
I am one of the people whom Enny is referring to when she says that she feels that she is being treated unfairly by certain members of the forum. Quite frankly, I feel she's blowing this whole thing way out of proportion; in the one year and eight months I have been a member of this forum (register date: 02-13-2002), I can only recall taking issue with something she's said a grand total of three times. That's right, three. I certainly don't follow her from thread to thread hounding her every step as she'd like have you believe... and once we take a trip down memory lane to examine just what I took offense to and why, I'll be very surprised if anyone thinks I didn't have a reason to speak up.
My first "experience" with Enny was in the chat room. My first time ever in the chat room, actually; I don't know *what* happened, but a couple folks were goofing around doing the cyber thing (myself included), and all of a sudden, she starts flipping out on me and calling me names. Welcome to the chat room, Phineas; random strangers will scream at you. I felt bad, so the next couple of times she logged in I tried to explain that, while I didn't know what I had done, I wanted to apologize. She blew me off rather than let me make amends, so I just let it slide.
Fast forward to... hmm, don't know exactly when. Several folks and I are sitting in the chat and discussing our love of Anime. All of al sudden Enny pipes up with, "Asians scare me. I think they're creepy."
* I should pause for a moment here to reflect on my perceptions that there is a definite prejudice against Asians here on the forum. People generalize, stereotype, joke about, and refer to them as though they're not even real people. I'm especially sensitive to such remarks as half of my family is Chinese. If I had said the same sort of thing about, say, Latinos, how fast do you think I would have been muted or kicked with a warning?
Anyway. I didn't throw a fit; I just made a comment that Asians are people just like anyone else, and if you took the time to get to know them as people, they really weren't much different than anyone else. Sound advice for anyone, I'd wager, as we're all supposed to embrace tolerance and open-mindedness around here.
Rather than just leave it at that, I was treated to a response along the lines of "I don't have to. They scare me and that's my opinion." Well, that got under my skin a little. I responded with the remark that it was a very narrow-minded view to hold and that she needed to get out more. I used to be "afraid" of people not like me until I started travelling, so I felt this wasn't an entirely inaccurate thing to suggest. Her reply? "I don't care what you think."
Any further comments were met with "whatever. It's my opinion and I don't care if you don't like it." so I let it drop.
(Issue #1, for those of you keeping tally.)
About... hmm, I think it was two weeks later, someone started a thread on what women thought of "foot guys". Being a foot guy, I kept an eye on that thread. Why not?
😀 Once again, Enny said something that rubbed me the wrong way and definitely could have come across as condescending. In summary: "I don't think they're all that great, and it's not like any of you will get to tickle them anyway."
I was still in a bad mood from the whole Asians incident. I made a snarky comment. It was wrong to do. I admit this.
(Issue #2. Several months have passed since this encounter.)
Recently, we had a thread on slim waists. I was already a little irritated with many of the responses to the original post; people were taking the opinion that you were either "voluptuous" or "anorexic". I was about to post a general comment along the lines of "it's fine if you want to express a preference other than the one held by the original poster, but kindly don't tear his down to do it." before I could, however, Enny made the following comment, not only pretty damn out there, but also, due to the wording, presented as fact:
The measurements 36-24-36 that is just sick. The only people that have those measurements are those who have had quite a few surgeries. If you prefer fake people then I'm sorry but that makes you fake too.
This, of course, is nonsense. As I posted in response, I know a good number of women who fit those measurements and not a single one of them is "sick", "fake", or has had *any* surgery.
Enny's response, of course, was a high-and-mighty missive about how much I hate her and shouldn't "waste her time" with my "personal attacks" because "all I do is stereotype people".
This last one was funny. I told her to prove it. Naturally, it went un-proven... because she can't do it.
(Issue #3.)
After this, I received a page on YIM from Enny wanting to know why I "hated" her so much and went out of my way to attack her "all the time". This was news to me, since I *don't* hate her; I would hardly call strongly disagreeing with three poorly-thought-out assertations over the course of two years hatred. I've butted heads with some of the other folks here
far more intensely than my spats with Enny and I don't hate any of them.
Regardless, I came under the impression she was really upset by my words and I felt it was necessary to put this misunderstanding to rest.
I PM'ed Enny with a fairly long response. I don't normally waste my time on huge messages so the fact that I sat down and wrote her a small novel should tell you that I felt setting things clear was important. I told her I did not have a problem with her personally (one of the things she said was, "you don't know me so you can't know what I really think"), but that I have taken issue with a number of things she's said in the past, things that, taken as a whole, have either offended me personally or could be construed as ignorant, such as asserting no woman could achieve that sort of figure without surgery when such a statement was easily disproven. I admitted that no, I did not know her, but how could I form a favorable opinion of her when every time we've conversed, she's thrown a fit over me disagreeing with some pretty badly-thought-out assertations?
I also said that honestly, I thought she was basically a good person, but she needed to think before she spoke because it made her look very immature.
Her response? I won't post the whole thing here, but it could be basically summed up as;
"I didn't do anything wrong, you attack me all the time, everyone says so."
"I was joking when I said I hated Asians, if you knew me personally you would have known that." (?!?!)
(tangent: "I don't care about you or your wife", was her reply when I told her I was very offended by her comments because of my family being the self-same people she was labelling as creepy)
* before we move on, here... assuming you accept my summary of the aforementioned comments as accurate, what, if anything, did she say that could have been taken as a joke? If it was a joke, even assuming such a joke isn't in poor taste, (again, "blacks scare me"; would I get away with saying this, even jokingly, around here?) wouldn't that be the first thing out of your mouth when someone criticizes you for this instead of "I don't care what you think, I'm allowed to feel that way?"
"I'm not immature, you need to open your eyes and accept that people have different opinions." (translation: "I know you are, but what am I?")
In other words, rather than attempt to address anything I'd said, or see it from my point of view, she just again asserted that she hadn't done anything, and that she was allowed to have an opinion. I was just cranky because I disagreed with it.
The next day, she posts her Goodbye Missive. Having attempted to enter into a discussion with Enny in an attempt to reach an understanding so that we might bury the hatchet, instead I had the olive branch (figuratively) shoved up my backside.
I don't really know how to react to all of this. Technically, all of the "socially maladjusted retard" remarks you all are heaping on "whoever it was" that made Enny cry are falling on my head. I don't know who *else* took issue with Enny or her conduct here, but I genuinely do not feel any of my comments were out of line, nor did my conduct constitute any sort of concentrated attack on the girl.
If anyone feels that I had no right to react as I did, say so now, because I truly have no idea how else to have handled any of it. (other than to ignore it, of course... but then that begs the question of, who is *truly* allowed to speak their mind around here, and who is allowed to take issue with it?)
I do apologize for causing her to leave... but if she's so fragile that she can't take the consequences of what she dishes out, and the rude(?) remarks of one individual speak louder than the obviously huge fan following she's got here, then perhaps it's better that way.
Of course, I fully expect everyone to start calling for my head after this. That's your right, and it will just mean that my suspicions are justified. I'd be happy to skip out on this community if you would all prefer to have Enny back. It's not like I've ever actually contributed around here.
regards,
Phineas
Evil Ogre at Large