This sock is the first of my April Vesper socks. It's finished and the started toe of the second sock is sitting politely next to it. Don't they look happy?
I'm knitting a pair of Vesper socks a month for the year (or as often/long as I feel like) as part of the Vesper KAL in the Vesper Yarn Lovers group. This month I'm knitting Skew (I know, again.) out of April Showers Bring May Flowers and it's turning out so lovely. I feel a little bit ahead of the game because it's not yet halfway through April and I'm done with the first sock so I may take some time on the second one. Time will tell. I'm very happy with how well they match so far though. I did a good job choosing where to start that second toe.
Now, on to less pleasant business. If you're only here for the yarn, you can move along.
I have heard horror stories over the years of how easily people can be misunderstood over the internet. There's definitely a lack of tone and inflection when it comes to what people are saying and, never wanting to be misunderstood I thought I was very careful to make it clear when something was meant as a joke or in what way it was meant. Apparently I was not as careful as I thought because this week, I was misunderstood. Misunderstood in a very big way. I made a comment on a Ravelry forum for a group that I'm in. I thought I was being polite (and attempting to be funny) and starting a dialogue about a KAL I knew was coming up and I was looking forward to. I received a reply from a moderator of the group and posted back what I thought was a joke and a polite response. I will not be telling you what group or which moderator so take that out of your mind please. The point of this is that I was misunderstood. This happened several days ago and I thought everything was fine until last night.
Last night I received a private message from another moderator of the group. This message implied that I was basically in the wrong group and had made derogatory comments to the other moderator as well as implying that now the moderator sending the private message was so angry the announcement of the KAL was postponed and would possibly even be cancelled. I was mortified.
Anyone who knows me in real life (I hope) knows that I would never purposefully hurt another person and that I would most definitely not be intentionally cruel or mean. If they misinterpreted my comment, which it's quite obvious they did, that's fine but I would have greatly preferred they simply delete the "offending" post, send me a private message informing me about it and asking me about my comment. They did nothing like that. They sent me a message that felt like a personal attack. It felt like I was being blamed for "ruining" a wonderful group of people and that now, because of one comment (again, that I thought was innocuous), the KAL that I was looking forward to may even be cancelled.
This led to me sobbing for about 3 hours (after sending an apology message) and then not being able to sleep because I was so upset. One of the things that I think hurts the most about this is that the moderator who sent me the private message was someone that I friended because of the group last year, someone I was looking forward to chatting with again this year, that's why I was impatient, why I was so looking forward to the KAL starting up. Now I'm heartbroken. I certainly don't feel like I want to participate in this KAL and also that I'm not sure about whether I even want to post in any group any longer. Maybe I'm overreacting but when I feel I'm personally blamed, I feel personally responsible.
Words cannot even begin to express how upset I am about all this. I actually feel like I should just pick up my knitting needles and shut up. But, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try to forgive and forget and move on. I don't want anyone else to go through what I'm currently feeling though.
That's why I'm saying this: Really think before you post something. Really reread it and if you aren't sure, save it and wait to post until later when you can read through it again. If you are a moderator of a group (and I know it's a very difficult job at time, I moderate several groups) please, please ask for clarification before personally blaming someone for something. They may not realize how they sound.
The internet is full of misunderstandings but this one hurts and I don't want anyone else to have to feel this.
1 comment:
Hugs sweetie.
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