It's a bit silly, isn't it? Like being back in grade school. "I don't like you because you are friends with so and so, and so and so and I hate each other, so therefore I hate you, too." I guess I've been concentrating on being a worker bee for too long to remember that a lot of people operate on the most basic of levels.

For me, I accept the fact that there are good and bad in everyone. I also choose to believe in the basic goodness of people, and will trust anyone until they give me reason not to. I suppose "guilt by association" is a by-product of "any friend of yours is a friend of mine." Does this mean that any enemy of yours is an enemy of mine?

I'm sure most of you know about the spat Natalie and I had with each other. We both said a lot of evil things about each other, and I'm sure there was some taking of sides amongst our friends. It wasn't too bad, however; I was still getting friendly, chatty IM's from certain Gorean types, ones that seem to have a penchant for displaying their junk (you know who you are), and I know some of my best buds were still reading SLIWT, and were seen chatting with DramaMama in various locales.

There is also a somewhat well-known situation involving Nat and me and a couple of moderately well-known girly boys. We were all friends at one time, or at least on each other's friends lists. I had taken my time to go do their events, and write some little articles about them, even though I was never paid for my efforts, but I did it just the same, as a way to help out a friend. Eventually one of them got fed up with my sarcastic humor, had a hissy fit, and region banned me from the sims that he was in charge of. I had apologized and tried to explain that how I write is very tongue-in-cheek, and people know and expect it of me. Like an idiot, I had told Nat what was going on, so she jumped into the mix, and didn't help matters any. I was trying to preserve the peace and maintain some sort of civil relationship, but Nat didn't care about them or their opinions, so she really let them have it.

Why am I still bringing this up? Basically, because it's what defines a true jackass to me. If I am friends with someone, and I do something that hurts them, but not intentionally, and I apologize to them for it, and explain it was in fun, and not to be vicious, and they still decide to go ahead and hate me forever and ever, then that is the very essence of being a jackass. It's probably just as well. I can't stop being funny. They can't stop having such low self-esteem that they are so easily offended. Someone I know used to have on their profile, "if you are irritated by every rub, how are you ever going to be polished?"

Another situation in which I am caught in the whole, "hate you, hate your friends" thing is the current battle Nat is having with a certain egomaniac "Editor And Chief." I don't know exactly if every RL magazine has an editor as well as a chief, or what the chief of a magazine actually does, but I am about 99.9% sure that all magazines have an Editor-In-Chief, meaning he's like the number one editor on the magazine's editorial staff. Anyways, this chief person and I used to be pals, and used to have some pretty funny conversations. Nat was somewhat of a "classic frenemy" with him, congenial to him, but constantly IM'ing me with things he said or did, as if she was considering going to war with him, but wanted my opinion first.
When Nat and I had our falling out, Chiefetta and his crew all removed me from their friends list. I know Nat was reported to be friends with him at this point. I also heard they were all saying some rather unflattering things about me. I realized he was probably only being nice to me all along because I was a writer with a following and a platform, and if I wasn't writing, I wasn't a threat. I also thought it was odd that Chiefalina and Edith both removed my name from their list at the same time. Isn't that odd? Did they call each other? I can just imagine the call, "Hey Granny, I'm taking Rawly the fat ass off my list right this instant." "OK, my darling girly bubuleh, I'll do the same."

I am writing this in the hopes that this insanity will end. Natalie and I are not conjoined twins, sharing one brain. She does her thing, I do mine. There are people who she is friends with that I don't think are even fit to lick my boot, and she usually ends up trying to marry, if not marry, them, so I'm usually stuck having to flirt with them just to mask my disapproval.

Since being back to writing here, I had talked to a friend of mine about her doing some editing, because unlike some "Editorina and Chiefella" types, she actually has a competent grasp of the English language. Unfortunately, my friend with the Language Arts skills superior to mine--I know, can you believe it?--said she would not be able to do it, because of an article Nat did that was not very kind to her business partner. Honestly, I didn't read the article, I wasn't part of the event, so I had no idea what happened. My friend says her business partner thought I held the same opinion of her that Nat apparently does, which is unfortunate, because I've only made her acquaintance a few times. Like I said earlier, I choose to believe in the basic goodness of people, and to trust someone until they give me reason not to.

I would also like to point out that, while I have great affection for Nat, I am the one that gave her the "DramaMama" and "DramaRazzi" tags. I accept those things about her, and she's realistic enough to say, "Oh hell, you got me. I AM dramatic." For anyone who says, "I don't like drama", I would like to point out that the first thing you learn in performing arts is that the ancient Greeks developed what we know today as "theater", and plays were, and are, divided into two categories, "drama" and "comedy". To not accept drama as a part of life is unrealistic, and a bit boring.

A man may be known by the company he keeps, but not totally. For someone to tell me they don't like me because I am a friend of Natalie, and they don't like her, is about as silly as someone telling me that I suck as a builder because they've seen Nat rez a prim, and it's not a pretty sight. Each one of us is the only one responsible for our own actions. We shouldn't hate people for what their friend has done, and we shouldn't expect every person to be intimately familiar with every little thing that each one of their friends has experienced.