My story is nothing, especially compared with some of the heartbreak in this thread. I feel the sudden impulse to hug everyone, but I will keep that under wraps and apply electric shocks as needed.
Anyway, I am pretty actively involved at Epinions, but there are sections where I rarely read. I was seeing if I could use Google to find a review someone had made where I had commented, and I found my username mentioned in a review by someone I didn’t know. There, right in the middle of his post, he said that I was useless and completely overrated.
There were lots of comments, by people I am friendly with, and all of them talked about how his review was so good and they agreed with him about everything. Now, none of those people mentioned my name, but it hurt nonetheless.
What’s funny is that now I see that member everywhere. If I post a review, he or she is always there to give it a good rating.
Only mildly related, but have you ever tied yourself in knots wondering, “If my Dad had married someone else, and my Mum had married someone else, then two halves of me would be walking around somewhere else right now…”?
Two big ones for me, though the first wasn’t overheard and the second wasn’t a bad thing about me, just a bad thing concerning me:
One day I got a note from my best friend of 6 and a half years, delivered by a mutual friend. In short, the note said I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with and I oughta hang out with dorky people, whereupon she named the mutual friend whom she actually hated. (Yeah, I knew she was just pretending to be this girl’s friend. Shoulda been a warning to me, I guess). She was the last best friend I ever had.
A few years later, she slept with a (then) well-liked youth minister who was married and had a young child. She got pregnant and by telling on him, got his wife to divorce him and then she married him herself. Oh, and she held her wedding (not a big or elaborate ceremony. She could’ve easily changed the date.)the day after the funeral of a guy everyone knew and loved from high school. He died pushing his friends out of the way of an oncoming car. She showed up at the funeral and even talked about her wedding. No one likes her now. Oh, and did I mention she wanted her kid and her husband’s first kid to play together and be friends? Surprisingly, his ex-wife didn’t go for it.
Second, biggest one. Hurt a lot more than the first, so I’m saying less about it:
Dated a guy for three years. We lived together for the last year of it. He knew how he was gonna propose to me, we had kids names picked out, and everything. He’d even write my name as MyFirstName HisLastName sometimes. Well, one day I saw an email he’d written to a girl he’d met in the last few weeks of his studying abroad the year before. It said he just wasn’t in love with me and hadn’t been for several months and that he felt we’d be breaking up soon. He then confessed that he loved her intensely and basically had ever since they’d met. Broke up with him as soon as I finished reading his email.
She’s living with her boyfriend now and has been for almost a year now. He hasn’t dated anyone since we broke up two years ago, though he’s recently started pursuing a girl who has three (including him) guys she’s leading on, one of which she’s very likely sleeping with. (Not my ex. She just goes to talk with him when the first guy is busy and none of her friends want to hang out. So, at least he’s the second guy on her list. Gotta feel bad for that third one.)
Wow. Compared to some of these my story isn’t much…
I was in junior high school and had told my ‘best friend’ of several years about my dream/fantasy involving the very popular guy I had a dreadful crush on…the next day EVERYONE knew because she made it a point to tell him and all his ‘in’ friends. I was totally humiliated and never spoke to her again.
I was riding on the bus about a year ago, and overhead a teenage girl and her boyfriend talking about me. Basically, the were having a whispered conversation along the lines of “Wow. If I were that fat I’d kill myself.” “I wouldn’t even go out in public.” etc…
And I was certain they were talking about me, as the bus was virtually empty, and I was a few rows away. I’m still not certain if they knew I could hear them. The bus engine was pretty noisey. But I honestly think they were enjoyed saying that stuff, and got off on the idea that I might have heard what they said.
Now granted, I am overweight (and have lost a lot of weight recently). But when this incident happended I was a size 20. Big, sure. Even very big. But if I walk through a mall I see plenty of people my size or bigger. I dress pretty well for my figure - it’s not like a have a lot of fat flapping around - and I’m pretty fit and healthy for my size.
To cap it all off, it turned out that for the rest of that year, more often than not, they were on my bus in the morning. I had some very fulfilling daydreams involving various witty comebacks, and occasional violence/maimings.
But like a poster up-thread said, I don’t know why it bugged me so much that someone whose opinion means less than nothing can be so hurtful. They were a couple of stupid teenagers (not just an assumption - I overheard many of their conversations that year). But it still bothers me thinking about it a year later.
When I was a student I had just started seeing this girl who, well, had some very good attributes, but also was overweight. A good friend of mine (very smart but highly caustic) who was into health and body building and self control, heard that this girl was seeing someone but didn’t know it was me. So a bunch of us are standing around and this guy starts saying “what sort of a loser would go out with her, she’s so fat etc”. Everyone else (who knew but were frozen like rabbits in headlights) stood there in embarrassment before I finally said “It’s me”.
We remained friends somehow. Funny thing is, after I broke up with her, he slept with her. What a loser!
I had gone to dinner at a friends’ houseboat in Oxford and there was a lot of wine left at the end of the evening. My hosts suggested I take home one of the bottles, which had been opened but not drunk, for me to share with my housemates when I got home. We recorked the bottle and I set off homewards.
When I got on the bus, bottle in hand, I sat down next to a group of foreign language students. They were chatting in Spanish, and the one right next to me said: ‘why do the pissheads always follow me around?’ I took such pleasure in addressing her in Spanish. Once she’d got over her embarrassment and apologised, we ended up laughing about it and chatting about Spain and all sorts of other stuff.
Next time this happens ask them to solve one of the world’s great mysteries. If La Liga is one of the best leagues in Europe, why are Spanish referees so shite?
