I ORIGINALLY worded this with a description of you.
You're somewhat entertaining, and while your viewpoints frequently conflict with mine in many ways, engaging in debates over them is entertaining.
That kind of relationship is not inherently a bad one--quite the opposite, it takes a lot to turn that sort of positive engagement into toxicity and yet somehow I managed the feat.
You're a skilled player, remarkably adept at reading me but with reasonable skills at reading others, too, and while you can even in games I'm not a part of on occasions be toxic, USUALLY, your attitude is a net benefit of games with the unique signature style blend of serious posting and more lighthearted shitposting.
I know I was the one to wrong you, and I wronged you
badly
.
I know I was unapologetic about it and at every turn
continued
to be unapologetic about it and
still
am unapologetic.
I was the one who started the grudge match, I was the one who began it, and I made no effort to stop it and in fact took actions which ensured it'd have happened.
I was unsympathetic, I showed zero empathy, I didn't really bother to treat you like a person.
All of this makes me a genuinely shitty person, but the real shittiness comes from this.
I vaguely recall all of the above being true, but honestly?
I don't remember it.
I have the vague sensation that everything I said above is true, that what I just described really did happen, that all of it transpired as I described.
The awareness of the actions is more or less there.
But I just...honestly don't remember them.
I forget a lot of things I shouldn't.
And there was a time where not remembering deeply
hurting
a person would horrify me.
Deeply wounding someone, leaving a permanent negative mark on their personality, one which you and you alone are solely responsible for...and then after all of that...not REMEMBERING having done it?
That you did such a shitty thing and you legitimately, genuinely, can't even recall having done it?
Knowing you did wrong but not knowing what the wrong was because you just can't remember
what
you did?
It's horrifying, it's terrifying, it's shitty, so obviously, any reasonably empathetic person would be
mortified
at having forgotten how they wronged someone to the extent where such a strong ill will festered for so long.
For the longest time period, I felt that way, and yet.
At some point.
I just...stopped caring.
I stopped caring that you hate me.
I stopped caring about the grudge.
I stopped paying attention to it.
I stopped really thinking about it, honestly.
I stopped caring about how I didn't remember what I did wrong.
I objectively know that having stopped caring about not remember doing a shitty thing is by far a worse shitty thing.
But I can't find myself caring about that.
I still do genuinely regret it.
But I stopped trying to fix it.
I stopped trying to propagate it.
I stopped just about everything about it.
And just kinda...made peace with it and myself about it, as much peace as there could be.
I did something shitty to you.
I don't remember doing the shitty thing to you.
I don't care that I don't remember doing the shitty thing to you anymore, itself even more of a shitty thing.
I've given up on making amends, itself a shitty thing to do.
But my regret is mostly from a combination of knowing what happened, happened and can never be undone, and also that even though I've moved on, you haven't.
As much as is possible, I made peace with having inner demons, of being a shitty person, and kinda just...moved on with my life.
Even though I know you haven't, because you wouldn't still act this way at me if you had.
Like I said. My annoyance towards you isn't in your treatment of me. I just sigh at it, accept it as what it is. My annoyance is only in not being able to read you, which is not an annoyance unique to you.
There's just...in a sense, nothing special about you to me, nothing different in my treatment of you than my treatment of anyone else. Not anymore. There used to be, at the various stages. The initial uniquely shitty treatment. The propagation of the grudge. The repeated attempts to make amends. But I just...no longer see the point.
There's a regret at what I ruined, a potential for friendship that will never ever manifest for justifiable reasons but which could've theoretically been there had I not fucked things up between us. But that's not even special anymore because that's how I feel about all scummers who I have interactions with that end up with friction even heat.
So, shitty as it may be for me to have moved on in spite of me having been the one to have done the initial wrong.
I've just...moved on with my life.
