You can take comfort in being disdained by so many.
Sometimes that's a satisfying outcome if I've hidden the disdain, but in general I can't disagree at all.
It's bothering me a lot at the moment that while Lee must know I loathe her, she'll probably never appreciate or understand it. Her loss.
4 I feel the same exact way about my ex-wife and it's been over 10 years now. Part of what makes it sweet now though is finally being in an amazingly satisfying and fulfilling relationship with someone I'm crazy about. The ex never came close.
You could start by describing your precise levels of disdain for each of us.
Let's share our SAT scores, incomes, and lists of exes in order of loathing.
There is only one person that has earned my unequivocal disdain and every time he looks in the mirror he knows it all too well.
5 is my version of "living well is the best revenge".
This is a billion dollar anonymous social network waiting to happen, yes? Ogged, get on it.
"Hatr is a social networking app that lets you express your precise level of disdain for other people, tagged by their social media profile or photograph."
I had the same idea. Let's get some app development going.
I expect equity for that, just so we're all on the same page.
Sure. "Hatr" is a better name for this than my idea of "Disdainr" anyway.
14 actually written before seeing 13. Great minds, etc.
It's not enough for them to know that you disdain them to such-and-such a degree; you have to be able to really express it to them, and ideally (as per 4) get them to adopt your perspective.
Also, many of the people I disdain wouldn't be connected to me on a social network, because they're my so-called "betters".
You'd just need a feature to alert them to your disdain even if they aren't on the network themselves.
Like an army of on-demand contractors who can show up at their home/workplace to deliver the message. Like Uber for disdain.
Actually, on Friday I found out from a mutual friend who knows nothing about this that the woman who had an affair with my now ex-husband and the proceeded to act like a total sociopath about it is probably dropping out of grad school. Even though there were lots of times I wished this would happen, now that it actually is, I don't really feel great about it. The fallout from the affair caused her to avoid our department for years, which I'm pretty sure played a role in delaying her progress through the program and now her now decision to drop out. Weirdly, it makes me mad at my ex because I feel like of the two of them, he got out of the affair much more unscathed, and this woman who was a terrible "friend" and a terrible person but less to blame is paying a much higher price.*
My current BF pointed out that getting divorced was punishment for my ex, but shamefully the affair was one of many factors, and ultimately he basically tanked our marriage by getting second thoughts afterwards and acting like a petulant psychotic asshole in various ways. A couple of months after the permanent separation, I did get the satisfaction of receiving alternately smarmy** & angry*** emails after he found out I'd moved on in a much shorter amount of time than he expected.
Anyways, I guess I loathe my ex, although I feel way more anger at myself for putting up with his bullshit for so long rather than angry at him. I mean, the red flags were there from day 1, but I was a naive 23 year old who totally missed them.
*I've now found out that I really wouldn't wish dropping out of a PhD program at 34 after 8 years on my worst enemy.
**My favorite email was when he wrote in incredible detail about his amazing wonderful weekend at his family's vineyard, which he drove to in his father's brand new $200,000 Mercedes. Like, 1) I'm not a gold digger, 2) even if I were, bragging as an adult about one's father's money is embarrassing, and 3) a major source of conflict in the marriage was that he was a whiny spoiled manchild who couldn't handle living within his means and refused to get a job that required any actual work. We would have huge fights over how I couldn't keep him in the lifestyle to which he was accustomed on my grad student stipend.
***My favorite angry email was when he accused me of "blindsiding him" with "adultery" and "blowing up our marriage" as we were not technically divorced when I started seeing my current boyfriend. Mutually agreeing to get a divorce, ending couples therapy, and him moving back to his home country permanently and renouncing his green card was apparently not enough forewarning that our relationship was over.
Exactly. Hatr will deliver artisanal, hand-crafted, impossible-to-ignore hate-mail, to anyone anywhere. The premium service will involve elaborate guerrilla art pieces blocking the disdainee's commute.
In the premium edition you would pay a monthly fee and in exchange the contractors would also punch them. The fee would cover bail and legal fees.
We're just coming up with premium features all over the place here. Attention lurking VCs.
23 to 19-20. I'm thinking bob can be Chief Theory Officer.
The Silver, or Hipster, package has a cream pie option at reduced price.
And Buttercup obviously our first brand ambassador.
28
Ha! I was just about to volunteer.
I am happy to pitch H8ER to investors in SV. I have asymmetrical eyes, so we already have a leg up on Theranos.
Dammit! I meant to write symmetrical eyes.
I think we also have a more sustainable business model.
I'll be happy to copy-edit your slide decks.
Sustainable? Our business model could survive the collapse of civilization! Indeed, margins would improve in the absence of bail expenses.
It would fit nicely with the tribal blood-feud system likely to follow in the wake of civilizational collapse.
We could be the dominant communication system for the warlords of the future!
And the multi-tier pricing model will allow for carefully calibrated escalation, rather than all-out war. A service to humanity itself!
The premium service will involve elaborate guerrilla art pieces blocking the disdainee's commute.
This is like the second coming of Flann O'Brien's employment scheme for WAAMA members. Poets and novelists hired the better to convey the delicacy of your disdain, conceptual and performance artists engaged to baffle, stymie, and generally overthrow your foe, musicians for anti-serenades, speechwriters (and again poets!) put in your mouth exquisite phrases of odium, hexameters of hatred to crush the spirit of any at whom they're directed.
And yet, in the end, won't more honor, and more and satisfaction, accrue to the one who tells off the other with his or her own words, how humble soever they might be?
This from a man who cannot express his disdain save via posts on eclectic web magazines? Don't be too proud to accept our help, sir. We are here to hate.
I can express my disdain in a variety of media.
It doesn't seem possible to register ha.tr, only domains like ha.com.tr etc.
37 suggests lucrative diversification into the gaslighting sector.
O Frenemy, you'll never know
Precisely why I loathe you so
I'll never know how good it feels to slap you - oh no
Look, fuckface, you really suck.
hatr.com and h8r.com are available.
The revenue streams just keep proliferating.
Stay on brand, FA. We haven't pivoted yet.
A 'blood hatelet' is similar to, but smaller than, a blood hate. For example, your relationship with your ex is probably a hatelet, wheras the Serb/Croat situation would be a hate.
Speaking of damn Turks, hatr could use the mechanical turk model to establish a large pool of people willing to write vicious denunciations of people they've never heard of in their spare time for a small fee. I would seriously consider signing up.
Google will soon unveil its latest neural network, capable of hate and disdain matching that of top-ranked professionals.
63: have you been reading Kevin Drum as well?
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/04/will-twitter-soon-be-overrun-silicon-trolls
Right now, if you want to have someone attacked by a horde of angry strangers, you need to be a celebrity. That's a real problem on Twitter and Facebook both, with a few users in particular becoming well-known for abusing their power to send their fans after people with whom they disagree.
But remember, the Internet's about democratising power, and this is the latest frontier. With a trollbot and some planning, this power will soon be accessible to anyone.
There's a further twist, too: the bots will get better. Attacking someone on the Internet is a task eminently suited to deep learning. Give the bots a large corpus of starter insults and a win condition, and let them do what trolls do -- find the most effective, most unpleasant ways to attack someone online. No matter how impervious you think you are to abuse, a swarm of learning robots can probably find your weak spot.
DAMN IT. That's all meant to be a quote.
HTML has been a trollbot from the start.
||
At a traditional Fremen event. I have drunk camel's milk and witnessed their sword dancing.
Have they weaved a circle round you thrice?
I was invited to participate but my cow orkers went to lunch so I was stuck manning out booth.
Invited to participate in sword dancing? Great Scott.
I'd like to sympathize with the original post, but I really can't. Anyone I'm disdaining seems to know about it immediately. Even people I'm not disdaining have a tendency to think that what's going on.
Speaking of damn Turks, hatr could use the mechanical turk model to establish a large pool of people willing to write vicious denunciations of people they've never heard of in their spare time for a small fee. I would seriously consider signing up.
Isn't this a fairly large industry in Russia?
4: I've done pretty well at letting go of resentment of my ex and I wish her all the best in life. It's been a long journey but it's a good thing. I just hope she's less of a bitchcuntwhore dingo-faced weasel-fucker for the sake of the people around her.
64:I have a friend who shares a name (to within one letter) with a famous up-and-coming female movie star (Hunger Games lead). She signed up for Twitter and within half an hour had 500 messages telling her she was a no-talent cunt who should die in a fire along with similar sentiments. She deactivated the account.
I thought everybody loved the Hunger Games lead. It was in the paper or something.
The greatest tragedy of my life is probably the attack ships on fire thing.
Mine is never getting to see Montana from my recreational vehicle.
I got to see Montana and stay in a pop-up camper.
But, I haven't been to the western mountains in ages, unless you count Tucson.
And I haven't been to the Tannhäuser Gate since high school.
We need to have an unfogged Mountain Meet-up/Donner Party Celebration.
75: This is one of those mess with the mommy bull, get a scrambled metaphor things than just plain ex stuff, which I'm more chill about in general. It'll get better. I swear I'm not just being a resentful jerk.
S'OK, Thorn, I know you're not a jerk of any flavor.
I don't understand 86, but second 87 fully.
A scrambled metaphor is like an onion dip with many layers.
I have a smug acquaintance who I take pleasure in disdaining. Her most recent status gave me lots of pleasure - it was a funny parents-teasing-kids tweet where she wrote, "this is exactly the kind of thing I did when my kids were this age." Maybe this is falling flat in re-telling. I'm pretty sure that she means she did the not-quite-so-polished version which, yes, we all do.
I don't get it. Is this about pooping?
Can I suggest 'wankr' rather than 'hatr'?
Oh good god, NW, that's... a lot. I don't even know what to say.
94: Yeah, I felt like if I had actually read that whole thing, it might have qualified as the great tragedy of my life.
73: just shows what an amateur you are at the whole disdaining business: apparently you only disdain people you actually know.
There is definitely (or could definitely be) a joke about three Irishmen going to an emotion-themed fancy dress party with the punchline "I am feeling dis Dane, he is deep in dis pear, and he is fucking dis custard."
94: It's a piece that makes me obscurely ashamed to have a penis
I have become less of a disdainer as I get older. Most people are fine. Pretty much everything is situational anyway.
93: Oh my god. What the everloving. I was too horrified about the couch in his parents' house to get much further.
Giles Coren is a prat of long standing, no?
101: oh, lord, yes. He's almost the perfect target for ttaM to kick in the face, except he's not a Conservative MP.
That article in 93 is quite something. I can't believe I read the whole thing, but even more than that I can't believe the entire thing stays so ruthlessly on-topic. I kept waiting for it to veer off into something resembling a broader point.
*I've now found out that I really wouldn't wish dropping out of a PhD program at 34 after 8 years on my worst enemy.
Buttercup, you may not have read the full archives here, so you might not know that while I grant an extraordinary amount of forbearance, once I h8 someone, I never, ever let it go. I researched forgiveness for about four months, since weak ass fuckers* are always recommending it. I came to the conclusion that it isn't for me.
With that context, I want to say that I always find the sentiment you voiced (wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy) baffling. Once I hate someone, I wish all of the terrible things on them, in sequence. I can't imagine relenting. I commit to the project.
My sister and I figured out that my immediate family covers the whole Punnett square. My Dad and sister forgive. My Mom and sister forget. I never forgive or forget.
*including commenters here!
I dropped out of a Ph.D. program at 35. It wasn't that bad. I only spent four years on it if you only count the time I was enrolled.
Ugh. I'm almost 45. I should have a midlife crisis.
106: I think I'm having one now. I hired a convertible and everything.
I wish all of the terrible things on them, in sequence.
What's the correct sequence of terrible things? Ascending order of terribleness? But what about the things that are too close to call? And won't the terribleness levels be subjective and vary from one enemy to the next?
This sounds like a job for a mathematician.
107: Fishing is something you people like, isn't it? Opportunity.
108
It sounds like a job for...the hatr algorithm!
I know the midlife crises of England and I quote them chronological.
I researched forgiveness for about four months, since weak ass fuckers* are always recommending it. I came to the conclusion that it isn't for me.
Preach it! I have engaged in a forgiveness-like behavior where I decide that someone's conduct was more understandable/less harmful than I had originally thought. But that doesn't seem like what people mean when they talk about forgiveness.
My wife and I were arguing the other night about a guy who testified against me in an entirely dishonest fashion with a great deal at stake. I recently friended him on Facebook, and The Missus doesn't approve. I have come to realize that he was backed into a really, really tough corner, that the incompetence of his testimony was deliberate and that his testimony, untruthful as it was, nonetheless won me my case.
Another guy who testified against me in that case died in an untimely fashion. I like to believe that the stress associated with his failed attempt to ruin my life caused his heart attack. As I say, I don't really forgive people.
106, 107: Really, this is a terrible idea.
Turning 45 is a good idea compared to the only known alternative.
The pressure from the pro-forgiveness side is strong. I found it a huge relief to decide that it is OK not to forgive.
I also believe that his behavior against you contributed to his heart attack. It doesn't work backwards, but I do think shitty behavior causes some bodily outcomes.
I think the final step in Megan's journey of humiliation and terror should be an attempted cure for cholera, pioneered in Naples in 1882: the carbolic acid enema. To ensure the pressure that would produce sufficient penetration, it was delivered through a tube 3m high. I have one particular enemy (not an ex) for whom I would arrange a mirror so that he could watch the jar of carbolic acid being winched into position once he'd been strapped to the table.
Possibly this belongs in the Theranos thread, but there was never any question that this treatment had visible effects.
The journey of which I am the author, not the subject, yes?
104
For the longest time I wished many horrible things on this woman, but I guess now it's been long enough and the relationship she helped torpedo was toxic enough that honestly, it was probably a good thing the affair happened as a tangible sign of my ex's dickishness. When I found out about it, I had all sorts of friends give me the correct but unsatisfying advice like that mentioned in 10, and helped me focus on the moving on aspect rather than the dwelling in hatred aspect.* I was surprised that I didn't feel more triumphant when I heard she was dropping out, because I'm generally a spiteful person and after the affair my one biggest desire was that she would drop out. (Well, technically my biggest desire was she would get kicked out after some publicly humiliating academic scandal).
*Lest you think I'm a good person, the support I eventually got for "taking the high road" afterwards from mutual friends who hadn't initially dropped her as a friend was incredibly satisfying and basically made up for the fact I'd kept the whole thing discreet instead of sending out an announcement through the dept listhost. It helped that at some point she became unhinged and told several mutual friends that I'd declared war on her and was leading an anti-feminist witch hunt against her because I didn't believe in "strong women having sex." She also accused me of "sticking my nose in her private affairs," which was apparently her relationship with my ex-husband. There are still other mutual friends whom she told a different highly persuasive sob story to who have remained friends with her (one was that my ex was a sleazy dick (true) who had seduced her (false--contradicted by email evidence I have from the affair)). I don't talk about her with them at all, even though it pains me that she's lied in this way and gotten away with it, but taking the high road involves not bringing her up or talking about her unless directly asked. Also, 6 years on it's water under the bridge and I've moved on.
Just in general, not sending out an announcement on the department listhost seems like a good idea.
Assuming a listhost is the same thing as a listserv. We didn't even have listhosts when I was in school.
Also, I don't know if I would say I've forgiven her. I would never vouch for her in any circumstance nor say anything positive about her if asked. If she were to become extremely successful in some way, I would also feel quite pained. I'm also still irritated she got away with lying, even though it doesn't really matter any more. I guess I don't hate her enough that I'm actively gleeful she's dropped out of grad school, but I feel like there's room to still hate her a bit. (Like, she was unhappily single 6 years ago, and I certainly hope she's still unhappily single now. Given that she's kind of a sociopath, there's a good chance she still is single.) I decided at some point she was persona non grata, and the few times I've had to be in the same room with her since I've pretended like she didn't exist. I would probably continue to do that if I had to be in a room with her again.
118: jesus, was the idea that a dead person definitely didn't have cholera?
120 I had something similar, and similar thoughts of sending out an email on various professional listservs at my lowest point. So glad I didn't but one effect was she thought that was going to happen and so confessed her affair to just about everyone and I never breathed a word to anyone about it other than a few close friends. Like she went around saying that I was going to accuse her of x, y and z just to head off the consequences and when I didn't she really looked like the shit she is.
Also is it not satisfying that what you've found in your current bf now is so much better than what you had when you were married? That's what I feel with my current situation and what I meant by 10.
122
Yeah, same thing. We have a one that is for students and student alumni only, so it's a bit more frivolous except lots of alumni are now famous faculty elsewhere.
You know how they say "To live well is the best revenge"?
For me, this means that the sentiment, "Damn, my life sure is good" is inextricably connected to the thought: "Fuck all of you assholes."
Remember when that one guy accused his girlfriend of cheating on him and Jonah Goldberg was there and they were on CSPAN? That was great and all, for me. I wonder how it worked out for their careers as mini-pundits or whatever.
I've taken forgiveness to such an extreme that I haven't lived well, so as to avoid any possibility of vengeance.
126
That is a great example of karma! I'm so glad it worked out like that. I really do believe if you get out of the way, shitty people will generally reveal their shittiness without any help from you.
And definitely, having a boyfriend who is better in every way really does help me feel like I've "won" the break up fight on all levels. Not stooping to revenge + dating up basically shows them how little they meant to you in the scheme of things. (Also, my ex was starting to get into psychobiology (possibly just to piss me off), but he would say things like, "as a woman approaching 30, you're going to have a way harder time finding someone new than I will," and other general BS about women's "value" dropping with age while men's "value" increased, so the fact I moved on way before him was even sweeter).
118: No -- the idea was that now they knew that cholera was caused by a germ, which could be killed by disinfectant, the smart thing to do was to disinfect the victim's intestines. I mean, c'mon: a really heartless doctor would have pulled them out first, to make them easier to reach.
I'm having the time of my life. It was worth the wait and misery to get to this point. All the same, or even more, fuck her. I would hope she gets hit by a truck but that's a horrible thing to wish on the truck driver. Maybe really slow painful terminal ass cancer. Yes. That.
Having a hard time parsing 134 there Moby.
I'm suggesting that you have personal experience that a carbolic acid enema is on net a good thing. For humor. Which I then beat to death.
I'm sure being beat to death after experiencing the horror of a high pressure carbolic acid enema would be sweet mercy.
I've long questioned the existence of forgiveness as a cognitive state; that what people call forgiveness is actually vengeance deferred, or deferred until forgotten. I certainly don't experience forgiveness.
Also, 118 et al
To believe people wondered why the death rate for cholera was at times upwards of 95%.
It is a funny feeling to be more appalled by the videographer than the actual rapist.
Is that really so strange? This doesn't seem like what the videographer is charged with now, but she made and distributed child pornography.
I've long questioned the existence of forgiveness as a cognitive state; that what people call forgiveness is actually vengeance deferred, or deferred until forgotten.
I'm pro-forgiveness (for myself, not necessarily on principle). For me the calculation looks something like this:
1) I don't believe that my emotional state affects the world. Just because I wish for something doesn't make it any more likely to happen.
2) So there's no point in wishing ill of somebody unless I would, given the opportunity, take vengeance.
3) Generally speaking I have no interest in taking vengeance because it would just mean additional interactions with somebody I don't like (or with somebody I don't mind, but on a topic which is unpleasant). I'd rather just move on.
4) Being upset at people clearly affects my own emotional state for the worse (not only because I don't like being angry, but also because I don't like feeling an obligation to do something which I'm not following up on. Being upset feels like an undone task).
So I try to take a period of time to, internally, name what it is that's making me annoyed; decide if it's worth acting on (which it usually isn't) and then attempt to move on. So, for me, forgiveness is an expression of my general tendency to be conflict-averse (which is why I find it interesting that Megan is anti-forgiveness).
That said (1) I'm fairly lucky (in many ways, but specifically that) most of my experiences in which people have pissed me off were fairly impersonal -- the person was either just thoughtless or careless, or clearly acting out of their own interests rather than any personal animus towards me. (2) I've learned, from experience, that there's a maximum rate at which I can try to burn off anger and when I have frustrating things happening at a greater rate I'm in trouble, because I don't have good skills for productively managing anger that I can't burn off -- I do end up just directing it inwards.
So this isn't advice, just my own personal coping strategy.
I'm not sure that I'm pro-forgiveness but I do what I need to do to live in peace. I let the girls have contact with parents who let them down to criminal degrees because I can't control the past and as long as the present is decent enough we can roll with it. I've certainly cut evil past people out of my life but I mostly hope they don't hurt anyone else the way they hurt me, not anything worse. People meeting the consequences of their actions doesn't bother me, but that I'm currently feeling some glee about that is a little weird for me. But I wouldn't say I forgive. Fuck that and fuck her.
I'm generally and theologically committed to forgiveness, though this may be because I'm enough of an asshole to be net beneficiary of a pro-forgiveness regime.
what people call forgiveness is actually vengeance deferred, or deferred until forgotten
Thus demonstrating that procrastination is the highest of the Christian virtues.
I've forgiven family (parents mainly) for some pretty heinous shit in the past mostly because I valued other aspects of the relationship as well as relationships with other family members and the one was necessary for the other. But not the ex. Slow. Painful. Terminal. Ass cancer.
I think the Parable of the Talents goes the other way.
146 Also a characteristic Unfogged trait.
I'm pretty sure the dumb servant didn't get ass cancer. Just fired or sold into slavery or something.
145: Mine is related to my pacifism, presumably. But that I have no affirmative moral requirement to help seems sufficiently close to what I should be doing.
I'm reminded of the Heinrich Heine quote:
"Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged".
143: If I read you correctly, what you're describing as 'moving on' is actually deferring the vengeance until you forget it; you don't describe a point at which you decide to stop wishing ill of someone, and in fact do so. This is what strikes me as impossible, because our brains don't work like that, we can't turn off emotions at will. Yet that is what Christians seem to claim when they talk about forgiveness.
Some Christians, anyway. Tigre presumably means 'cessation of hostilities upon salting of fields.'
Your supposed to let God help you. It's supposed to be impossible (or often impossible) otherwise.
You're suppose to handle the grammar on your own. Ooops.
I will spend my life looking for opportunities to deploy 153.
This is the same Heine who was sure that he would be forgiven out of divine professionalism.
145 yes. I do wish the fires of hell upon a couple of people, but they're not exes.
160 Well yes, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, et al.
I thought JRoth was the longstanding winner in the bad ex contest, but Barry seems a contender.
On preview, yes to 161, but they're not the ones I was thinking of.
156: Is god helping subjectively any different from deferral/forgetting?
For my ex, I would take ass cancer, or a 30 min video of him sobbing heavily on youtube.*
I do reserve the deepest layer of hell for people who actively make the world a worse place for millions of people out of sheer malice and greed, and then the next layer can be for garden variety assholes like my and other peoples' exes.
*Actually a current fantasy is that our current selves are magically transported back to couples' therapy, and we have to update our therapist on what happened after the break up. Cool as a cucumber, I tell her I'm in the happiest relationship of my life with an amazing guy, and my ex, who is now almost completely bald and gotten a bit fat, sobs on the couch next to me as I look on disinterestedly.
Knowing my ex though, it's highly possible that now he's married to a 23 year old Chinese woman or something.
162
I don't know the full details of JRoth's ex, but I'd say my ex could easily be a contender in the bad ex contest.
158: Joe Abercrombie used it as a book title (also "The Last Argument of Kings" which is equally good if you know its origin).
A 23 year-old Chinese woman who murders spouses for the insurance money.
129: the woman ended up moving to Australia, I believe. The guy is still doing his marginal libertarian-conservative thing, but appears to be horrified by Trump's triumph. He has a book out, but looks rather old and sad.
168: I caaaaaaaaan't, though, because I don't want my comments subpoenaed.
...I tell her I'm in the happiest relationship of my life...
Same here, hence 10.
170: How horrible for her. Nobody deserves that.
But TFA on that matter stands for itself even if you know I left out the worst bits.
171: There's always presidentiality. I think I mentioned a couple in TFA, but I'm not inclined to search.
Oooh! I have a few entries!
A few days after the first round of methotrexate (a chemo drug) treatment for my ectopic pregnancy and about 2 weeks after our wedding, my ex thought I was being too needy and difficult for acting like, well, a sick person going through an upsetting experience. He told me, "get over it, it's not cancer." At various points he kept saying, "why do you have to make this all about you. What about my needs?" when, two days after the methotrexate I told him I wasn't feeling well enough to go to a party but he was free to go by himself. He also told me it was my fault for "being deformed" for having an ectopic pregnancy in the first place.
This experience made me realized my ex was a bully, and I had to treat him like a vicious dog. If I showed any sign of weakness or vulnerability, he would treat me like garbage, but the minute I had any sort of upper hand in the relationship, he would be incredibly nice to me. The last 6 months of our marriage (after we'd decided to split up but before his parents were willing to take him back) went really smoothly, because I treated him with a "show no fear show no weakness" policy.
175: I had a longstanding rule of not going presidential about relationship problems because then it would all spill out and plus I figured it would be instantly obvious who I was. I'm fine, really!
I believe in compassion-- it's practical as well as ethical. Hating gives free space in your brain to its object and in general leaves you worse off.
That said, my father had a malicious ex who nearly destroyed him. It's not an active thing, but pretty well the only way that I can imagine wishing her well would be via her explicit and complete repudiation of the person she used to be. I would definitely put her up as a contestant in the horrible contest. After she drove my dad out of the main part of his family home, she drew his silhouette on the wall in pencil (life-sized) and would repeatedly and loudly attack the silhouette with a sword. She subsequently tried to sabotage my grandfather's funeral.
177: Honestly, you've gone above and beyond in sharing that, and I'm sorry to imagine that there was worse. Happy to hear that you're fine!
167: Abercrombie has been on the Magical Neverending Reading List for a while. Maybe I'll bump him.
173
Even worse, that's where my ex lives. Though if she actually cheated on her partner, maybe she'd be a good match for him.
I will say, my ex was a giant douchebag, but mostly of the spoiled petulant bully type. I came out of the relationship with minimal financial or general negative life consequences, and I have no continuing interaction with him, so I don't know if I'd actually win the terrible ex contest.
182. That wasn't a great year, all told. My trip to funeral was unrelatedly the most harrowing and unpleasant travel experience that I have had. I turn that part into a funny anecdote now when the mood strikes, though.
but he would say things like, "as a woman approaching 30, you're going to have a way harder time finding someone new than I will," and other general BS about women's "value" dropping with age while men's "value" increased
What a sleaze. That's some pick-up artist TRPer bull shit.
I know I just came out in favor of forgiveness, but putting on the wall a life-size pencil silhouette of your enemy which ou repeatedly stab with a sword is its own kind of awesome. I mean the kind of awesome that will probably ruin a person's life, but you have to admire the commitment to being vengeful.
But TFA on that matter stands for itself even if you know I left out the worst bits.
Yes. Based on just what you've shared, you have plenty of reason to remain angry.
Have you ever tried to fix drywall and have it look right?
She sold 5 carloads of books he loved. Then she called the police, claimed that the missing books had been hers, and explained that he had stolen them. He spent much of a day in custody while she destroyed other things he liked in the house.
188. textured stucco over masonry-- audibly, remember.
Better for the wall, but horrible for the sword.
184
Yeah seriously. Towards the end of our relationship, what was worse is he'd say all sorts of horrible stupid things and I couldn't tell if he genuinely thought X or if he was just saying an awfully thing maximally designed to piss me off. Either way it demonstrates he was a horrible person. He was registered in the Green party in his home country and did a volunteer program to help with AIDS orphans, so it didn't seem like his politics would be that repugnant, and they weren't when we first started dating.
He was also extremely arrogant. I don't think he is actually a full on narcissist, but he certainly had a higher opinion of himself than was objectively accurate. Part of that was spoiled rich kid-itis plus some weird colonial class mentality that's probably 60 years out of date in Britain.
189
Oh my god. That's grounds for a carbolic acid enema right there.
Just try to find a plan that will cover it. Thanks Obamacare.
Cosign 189. My grandmother threw out all my grandfather's books immediately after his death, and there's still lingering bitterness in the family. 'Pogrom-ish', one of my uncles called it.
I do hope Ume will forgive me for stealing her carbolic acid enema story.
193. Bygones. Probably just as well that this wasn't in the city where I had access to a social network of ex-cons.
Yikes, lw! I am very grateful to have an ex who is both awful and inept, which makes the machinations both obvious and unsuccessful.
176 may get the win. 178/189 is pretty spectacular, but with a degree of separation. The silhouette detail begs to be included in a film.
I have an ex who, when we were not yet exes, castigated me because whenever I complimented her clothes, it was always because of their interesting tailoring or some such, and never because of the way they showed off the hotness of her bod.
That's not really remotely in the running for "worst act ever" (in general or of hers!) but it continues to strike me as remarkable.
I don't think I've ever complimented tailoring.
If she said "bod," it may well qualify for "worst act ever," I think.
That's not really remotely in the running for "worst act ever" (in general or of hers!) but it continues to strike me as remarkable.
Remarkable, in the sense of being worth remarking on, but not I think particularly surprising. It sounds like you could have satisfied her request simply by occasionally remarking, "you look really good in that." In addition to any other compliments on the tailoring of her clothing.
I think it is, generally, a good thing for people to explicitly ask for the sort of flattery that they would like to receive.
Ah, I knew we had a conversation about this before.
"That shirt looks great on you because on the veldt men would select a sexual partner who appeared to be able to provide sufficient nourishment to his children and thus my DNA compels me to respond to the fact that I can see the outline of your nipples."
200: You could have just said "nice rack" once in a while.
200: So did that result in some castigation anxiety for you? Help is available, Neb!
I think it is, generally, a good thing for people to explicitly ask for the sort of flattery that they would like to receive.
Like the woman in the Naked Gun 2 who was upfront in asking "Is this some kind of bust?"
196: I forgive you for that, but not for the link in 93. Excuse me, I'm off to give myself a carbolic brain bleach.
Oops, the earlier thread asks if it's bad form to break up by SMS. I did, but because she (after 10 days overseas on a vacation she deserved) asked by text if I felt ready to talk about how to fix our relationship, because she had ideas. I had given her an ultimatum before she left (be home 30% of the nights in the six weeks before leaving, which included the time I had shingles. 20%?) which she'd failed completely, and so I felt no qualms at all about responding that there was really no need because I was completely over and we could work out the logistics of separation once she got back here. So she thinks I win the worst ex award.
Bah. Once it gets to that point, format is irrelevant. (Also, that thread has my worst; at this point, the only unforgiveness I can muster is not accepting a facebook friend request).
And Selah just threw up with her but not on her during their one-on-one visitation, which was one of her suggestions for how to improve our relationship, leave me with two kids while she did fun things with the third. Then one night or afternoon a week she'd be willing to spend time with me and talk to try to reconnect, and by breaking up I didn't have to put up with that!
I'll stop now, in part to care for two kids with stomach bug. Lee's definitely not actually the worst, just truly and infuriatingly bad. Sorry for the people whose stories surpass mine.
In the opposite of tragic news, my household is now possessed of one cheese hat.
Don't otherize me, bro!
Is there a polite way to ask whether some group of perfectly diverse far left activist youngsters are good Maoists or bad Maoists?
Segue your conversation into the Cultural Revolution and let them reveal themselves.
189 is bad and may well take the prize. Mine was a lot like 189 in some ways but spread out and involved lawyers and no being taken into custody. The outcome was much the same.
So this is the thread where everyone says "Hurray for hatred!" I've gotta say its giving me second thoughts.
201: but it continues to strike me as remarkable
Oliver Queenan would like a word regarding self deception. Are you seriously fucking pretending to not know that a woman you're dating would prefer your compliments center around her and not the "interesting tailoring" of her clothes?
I don't know from Giles Coren, but I found 93 funny and, in a way, charming.* Now I'm worried that I'm a bad person.
*(Albeit, decades after Portnoy's Complaint, even more unnecessary than it would otherwise be.)
You will be delighted to hear about this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/04/20/the_real_story_behind_the_kid_whose_mom_used_craigslist_to_find_him_a_feminism.html
"Hey baby. I love the the size of your french seams."
Maybe I just haven't ever been fucked over badly enough *touches wood* but I have always been incredibly feeble at holding grudges. I'm basically in NickS's camp, except with extra laziness and amiability.
It helps that I'm good at letting things go (or maybe that should be "losing"). For instance, I was badly shafted by a landlord in Switzerland and ended up leaving the entire deposit in escrow because I refused to give almost half of it back to have the place professionally cleaned, after I had already had it professionally cleaned at considerable expense. Apparently the ceilings were dusty?
Mostly I just feel like being a terrible person is its own punishment, and "being the kind of person who would do that do me" is almost always a worse outcome than anything I could fantasise about.
I do get incredibly angry and bitter on other people's behalf though, and that plus not knowing the individuals personally makes it (scarily) easy to feel hatred for politicians.
I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I hate Michael Gove, for example.
232 isn't such a great example, now that I think of it, because forcing us both into a lose-lose situation was itself a petty act of vengeance. A better one might be the time that I was living as an impoverished graduate in a dodgy council flat sub-let in London and my flatmates (and, until that point, friendly acquaintances) decided to use my share of the deposit to keep my room empty for a month because they didn't like any of the people who wanted to live with them after I moved out. Mulled taking them to the small claims court, decided that karma would do them for their ill-gotten £750 somewhere down the line.
(All of this reminiscing is excellent preparation for leaving China and having my landlord steal my deposit.)
If it makes you feel better, when I was in a dodgy rented house in college, we did a whole bunch of damage (parties) that we hid well enough to get our deposit back.
At uni we went through a stage of setting off fireworks in a bathtub full of water. The fuses have an oxidant in, so they still burn underwater, and when they explode they make a great "depth charge" style water spout.
We spent the last couple of days trying unsuccessfully to remove a Looney Tunes explosion stain off the ceiling above the bath using a mop and bleach. Still got our deposit back.
I thought you were supposed to flush them.
In toilets that aren't in your own place.
See, landlords being assholes makes me furious, because it feels like an abuse of power they normally get away with, and every person they can screw over makes it even more likely they'll screw over the next person. I successfully sued a landlord in small claims court while in grad school over my deposit.
I had an evil boss in China when I taught English after college, and he tried to do awful things when I told him I was quitting (long back story, involving a string of teachers quitting and leaving him in the lurch). But anyways, he tried to cancel my visa and withhold pay. A high point is is evil sister took me to the PSB to cancel my work visa two weeks before I was finishing teaching. The sister underestimated my Chinese, so when I found what she was doing I told the PSB woman that I was still teaching and this woman was trying to cancel my visa illegally and get me deported, and the PSB woman ripped the evil sister a new one right there, telling her that she was a giant exploitative bitch and it was illegal to cancel a work visa until the employee was done working.
After that my boss got nasty (threatening, telling me that China doesn't have a rule of law and he was friends with the police chief, sending a letter from a lawyer). I showed Chinese friends the letter, and they were like, WTF you need to go to the authorities. I went to the labor bureau to file a formal complaint; called the mayor's office; called the local TV station; and went to the police to report threats (they said my boss was totally out of line and it didn't matter if he was friends with the police chief). The labor bureau told me to be legally employed in China I had to have a work book, which I didn't have. They told me it was illegal for employers to hold on to the book, and if I didn't have one my employer was either illegally holding it or I was illegally employed. I went back to the school and demanded my work book. They played dumb, but later that day I got a groveling call from my boss, telling me that he had liked me and that we were friends, and everything was fine and of course he was going pay me ASAP. Anyways, it ended with him paying me, me cancelling my work visa and getting a "working tourist visa"* in Korea, and all being fine.
But anyways, it was a lot of work and stress and possibly not worth it for many people given the pay, but being bullied makes me absolutely furious.
*The consulate woman I'm pretty sure just made the visa up on the spot, but this was in 2006, back before the Chinese government really cared about visas.
Actually, the person I loathe most is probably Anders Breivik. I would probably involuntarily murder him if I had to be in close proximity to him.
This probably counts as pacifistsplaining but isn't the attitude in 240 presumably the reason you hate him?
It's not like she is going to go out looking for him.
I hate him because he's a horrible neo-Nazi MRA garbage person. I'd also kill Hitler if I had to be in the same room with him too. I don't think that makes me in any way a Nazi.
Why do all these people I want to murder keep sucking my cock?
Actually, the person I loathe most is probably Anders Breivik.
Excellent choice.
I'm ok going on the record saying I have a strong visceral urge to kill all remorseless neo-Nazi misogynist child mass murderers.
Well, youths is probably more accurate than children. But the image of him picking off the girls first because no one would fuck him even after his plastic surgery to look more "Aryan" makes me want to puke.
I feel urges to murder lots of people but sometimes I don't feel as much need to repress it.
Well, no. But I don't feel bad about thinking about murdering them.