I Pit NotOkay for convincing the entire board umkay had died!

[Marley23]

@choie

Dozens and dozens of “Ask the…” threads have been posted, and even more initial posters have just introduced themselves and told their stories that are unusual. And they weren’t called out.

Of course many of those people have been longtime posters, not people who showed up and made a couple of posts before starting the “Ask the” thread. I realize someone asked umkay about starting such a thread, but really, when you show up here one day and your first post begins

@umkay

Somewhat OT, but I am a quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury when I was 14.

You know darn well someone is going to ask you to start a discussion of your experiences.

@Broomstick

Someone on the DPW spectrum arguably is as much delusional as they are a troll.

That’s also possible. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s compelling and explains how umkay came to know so much about the life of a quadriplegic.

@Crazyhorse

“It is more shameful to distrust one’s friends than to be deceived by them.”

I know many would say it is gullible to have treated umkay as one should treat a ‘friend’ with the story they came in with. Why? Obviously because they are an anonymous person on a message board, not a friend, that’s why. But that is also the same reason there was nothing at stake, nothing to be won or lost, by taking them at face value.

There’s only one person involved in this who should be ashamed (leaving the possibility of delusions out of it). I am glad if you don’t feel taken advantage of or that you’ve lost anything of consequence here, but other people might, and I’m not eager to see that happen again. Being skeptical is not a character flaw - particularly not here - so please don’t treat this as a moral issue. Being openhearted is great, but being a sucker is not, whether it’s by temperament or by choice. You can be one and not the other just like you can be skeptical without being negative or nasty or suspicious.