I recently became a target because I stuck up for a young man who was and is being mobbed by a bunch of cyberbullies.

Sad how people– even thinking people who are on top of the game in other areas of their lives– can so easily give in to the mob mentality on the net for the sake of admission to an “in-group.”

Their bullying says far more about them than it does about me.

Keep striving!
sapphoq

There are a lot of things which I could say in response to this, but I want to be somewhat cautious about the type of response I give you.

Let me just say this;

People often determine their perspective on life based on their own reality, and it’s often very difficult for them to envision life any other way. I’m a happy person, and my goals have always been to enlighten and uplift with my writing, so the things I write about often reflect that perspective. I will continue to do that.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t made mistakes, I have, as does anyone. Tho I believe that I am capable of learning and growing in the wake of mistakes. What I will never do is change who I am or what I write about to appease someone else. This is me. Like it or not, it’s who I am, and this is my life.

If you want to know more, please email me, lazygeisha [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks sweetheart,

xoxo,
nina

I have always found our conversations useful and I have always appreciated the things you’ve shared with me, including this. It is my belief that I will emerge stronger from these experiences and I will always be grateful for your help and for providing me with the seeds to write some of these things. They are invaluable to me. I didn’t want to name you as a source because of the current climate, but I’m glad you felt confident enough to do so yourself.

Thank you for your kind wishes and your wishes for peace. I share in those with you.

xoxo,
nina

Thank you for this and for everything else too. This is good advice and I know exactly where I went wrong too. I don’t plan on making the same mistakes in the future.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me on this subject and I trust everything else is simply unsaid or said elsewhere, but thank you.

love,
nina

i use the internet as a means of research, communication, and entertainment. i adore it, that i have access to so much knowledge, otherwise unvailable to me. i adore that i have found the writings of you, dear nina, and other generous souls who bare themselves and their art in this media, for truly the world to see.
i’ve heard of cyber-bullying, even a teenage boy who committed suicide due to tormenting things cyber-bullies, and real-life bullies said to him… but that there are people who attack websites like yours??? it really blows my mind. there are so many lost, damaged people wandering through this world, congregating here in cyberspace, making such trouble- it is such a sorrowful, heart-aching thought. i use the interent for pleasure- i have so little time, time i do not have is what i am usually using, and i could not imagine harming anyone with that. it is so incredibly sad that this is such a large phenomena.
as a very independent-minded person, and have been all my life, i think aloud “why the hell would you want to form a clan, to think for each other, follow each other, do harmful things together…?” i suppose because i am so headstrong about my solitude, it has caused a great naivete about such things in cyberworld. i have experienced the disdain of cliques all my life, and forever shall. i have survived this sort of mobbing from a large portion of insecure women in my family, particularly my own two sisters. but people scavenging prey through blogging, attacking heartfelt journals? that is the absolute bottom-dwelling of clique-style harrassment. it bothers me terribly that places like this could be subject to such. i agree to no end with the advice of both orchidea and kochanie that there needs to be no tolerance for such abuse. LET THERE BE PEACE. peace and praise to you, Lazy Geisha, for standing on your own, and exemplifying what is right.

always,
tasha

I am glad to read that you found wisdom in the information I sent to you concerning the concept of Mobbing. I shared my experience with you in the hope that it would provide a better understanding of an experience that I found to be both baffling and painful.

I recently sent you the article entitled, The Art of Not Being Offended by Dr . Jodi Prinzivalli. I did so for a special reason: IMO, the phenomenon of mobbing and the concepts of power and powerlessness are inextricably linked.

Since I personally experienced the phenomenon of mobbing, I know that in its aftermath one wonders if it will be possible to think of anything else. There is the endless play of questions: Why did this happen? When did it start? Why didn’t I see this coming? During this time, the overall feeling was one of powerlessness.

Finally, when I asked myself the question, How did I contribute to this misunderstanding? — that was the point in time when I began to regain my sense of power. When I realized that I did contribute to the misunderstanding, even unwittingly, I no longer perceived myself as powerless.

When I read your post which included the information I sent to you a few months ago, I realized that I had not even thought about my own experience of mobbing during that time. I hope the memory of this recent turmoil will fade for you as well.

That sound I hear is not Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near. Time is parked in front on my house and He’s beeping the horn like there is no tomorrow. And that’s the point: there may be no tomorrow. There is only this day, this minute. To waste my allotted time on that painful episode of the past would be folly.

I will end this comment with my most sincere wish.

Let there be peace.
For you.
For your family.
For those who hurt you.
For those whom you hurt.
Let there be peace.

Kochanie

Being hitherto too weary of the whole whipped up controversy to have my say on this, I feel it’s time to break my silence. Of course people one meets in the wide freezing tundra of cyberia mirror those one meets in so-called “real life”, only that the inhibitions and constraints we experience in the physical realm are perhaps healthier, certainly stronger. I agree that caution is the key to forming solid cyber relationships, however, this tenet also applies real life. Not every person who is mentally or emotionally disturbed is easily or swiftly distinguishable when met in a face-to-face situation. It’s human nature to project one’s insecurities/desires/fears onto others, and cyber - being a sensory limited medium - is a fertile breeding ground for this. We have to keep our wits about us and use our intuition at all times.

When confronted with cyber bullying, my advice to anyone who blogs, born of experience, is to ignore the perpetrators. Adopt the policy of deleting threatening/offensive/trollish comments (or leave them up for your readers’ edification/amusement). After all, as I see it, a blog - especially a relationship/sex blog - is one’s private space, not a debating club, and its readers guests. Would you let someone hurl abuse at you in your home? Of course not; you’d throw them out. Don’t court the drama, be aware of counter-projection, be yourself, be authentic and, above all, be true to yourself.

Love,

orchidea xxx