fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4413 ]

[ SECRET POST #4413 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4413 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #632.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Have you had sad falling outs with formerly close fandom friends? Did it work out or did you keep drifting?

I had that with a few people. In one case, looking back the biggest problem is that I wasn't really close with them as they were with each other. I was close with them individually, we just didn't work as a group. I also think that beyond fandom and a few common interests, we were actually very different people.

In another case, I eventually learned she basically ghosted all of her fandom friends. I think it was a combination of being very busy and just having lost all interest in fandom.

Not a falling out, but she only comments on my LJ when I'm upset about something. I think she's on LJ less than she was before, and tries to comment when she thinks it will count the most. The intentions are good, but I'd like her to be around for more than just the bad times.

Yes. I'm still pretty sad about it. We went on a holiday together and everything. We beta-read each other's stuff, including original stuff.

I'd done several of her novels and she offered to beta-read mine. So I sent it off to her and she'd look forward to doing it the next week. And... nothing. After I month I gently reminded her. Yes, sure, she was sorry, she'd do it soon for sure.

I got a request to beta-read a novella for her. Sunk-cost fallacy kicked in; I did it. And again, nothing on my novel.

After moving house, feeling exhausted and emotional, I told her not to bother. She was shocked and apologetic … and didn't say she'd do the beta-reading.

She's done things of similar magnitude, though different, to other people, I've since found out. Ya think ya know someone...

I'm still in sporadic contact with her, I don't really know why. I still miss the friend I thought I had. :(

(Come to think of it, I vented about it here and people told me to drop her. Shoulda listened to you, anons!)

Ugh, that's horrible. :( I'm so sorry.

Thank-you, anon.

I think it was Maya Angelou who said "When people show you who they are, believe them." Sorry your friend sucked, anon. :(

Yeah, I had one fandom friend who accused me of something I didn't do, and something egregious at that. We had kinda been drifting apart, and I honestly believe she invented the drama to make a clean break from me. Looking back now, I feel like she did me a favor.

Not a falling out, but they just...basically left fandom and stopped communicating. A few people have done this, though one I know for sure was in some really dire straights both financially and mentally, and I can only hope they are okay out there, somewhere.

I had that too. And yeah, a few people who I know were in trouble and can only hope are okay. I hope your former friend is. FWIW, I have a friend who, in her recovery process, seems to have stepped down from LJ. So maybe it was like that? A lot of social media can actually be very straining in bad times. (I say this based on personal experience. LJ really wasn't giving me what I needed, but looking back that wasn't really fair to my friends.)

They kept up a kind of communication, occasionally posting, and also emailing me with updates and things. Seemed genuinely to enjoy and really need the contact. The last email was basically 'this situation is changing like this and hopefully i'll be living at this place and getting this job and things should be okay'.

That was...four years ago, I think, and since then, it's been utter radio silence. They weren't exactly in a good space, mentally, so it just...make me sad, sometimes, to think about, and anxious. I just hope things worked out in a good way.

Not exactly a falling out, but I messaged a really good old fandom friend of mine a while ago, just saying I missed talking to her and hoped she was doing okay. She never replied. We were really close, exchanged letters and fanart and had a lot of heart-to-hearts. She was a rock to me. It's sad but I get that people just grow up and leave friends behind sometimes.

I don't know that it was a real falling out. I just slowly decided I wasn't going to let her take advantage of me anymore and said no every time she tried. We don't hang out anymore because it turns out that's all she ever wanted to do. She once neglected to book her own accomodation for a convention because she assumed I'd let her stay in mine that I'd paid for, and share a bed despite the fact she smoked and I am asthmatic. She didn't ask or anything, just let me know on the day that she expected me to let her stay because she would totally do the same for me. Except I would never ask someone to do that?

"... I'd totally do the same for you..." is a huge guilt trip and manipulative technique. She wouldn't, of course. Otherwise she would've booked her own damn hotel room and offered you a place to crash. You were entirely right in deciding to pick off the leech.

And I hope you didn't let that bloodsucking ingrate stay.

I didn't in the end because I was out most of the night with other friends and went back to theirs. I think they had already decided she was bad news and didn't want her hanging out with them. Looking back on it I think they decided to save me from my own pushover ways. Thanks friends! I ended up having so much fun that trip and that was the wakeup call. My life was better without her.

I used to be pretty close with one person in particular, we even visited each other! But she gradually got worse and louder about her political opinions, her TERFy brand of feminism, etc. On election day 2016, she threatened to vote for Trump out of spite if people didn't stop talking about how important it was to vote against him, and that was pretty much the moment I knew it was over. I miss her, but I can never go back. </3

I so feel that. I know we're supposed to be all tolerant of other peoples' politics but fuck that. If someone supports politicians and legislation that actively hurt me and the people I care about, we can't be friends because THAT'S NOT WHAT FRIENDS DO.

Did when I was a kid. I actually had a best friend in 3rd, 4th and half of 5th grade. We bonded over liking to make up stories. But when we played, we always went with her stories. One day, I insisted it was my turn. She stopped talking to me. Then her family move back to the US and I never saw her again.

Yeah. We used to rp and write fic together, we had some good times. And then she diagnosed herself with autism/Asperger's and used that as an excuse to be an asshole. It was about that time I started to realize how emotionally manipulative she was, and how one-sided the "friendship" was, and made a clean break with her. It sucked but I'm over it now.

There was one woman I exchanged PMs with pretty intensively for a year or so. But over time I got the sense that she was really emotionally volatile, and eventually we had a bad falling out. I think she may have had Borderline Personality Disorder. It sucked to fight with her, but after a couple of weeks I was glad it was over. I didn't like the walking-on-eggshells feeling I got from being her friend.

There was another woman I met through fandom and we became good friends in real life. Sadly her mental illness (she was diagnosed with extreme, treatment-resistant anxiety and depression) began to consume her life more and more over the years we were friends, and eventually it was too much for me. I couldn't figure out where the line was between being supportive and enabling her self-defeating behaviors. Anyway, I guess she felt judged by me because she broke it off. I still miss her, and I regret my part in our falling out. But I also feel like with the headspace she was in, it might have been inevitable.

In my case it was more of a drifting than a falling out... I'm not close to any fandom friend anymore. I guess that's life... but it still sucks. Oddly, we all still hang out in the same chat, but it's rare for my formerly close friends to participate anymore.

Most of mine are more like sad drifting away than blow ups. I wouldn't call her a friend (more like an acquaintance) but I basically just stopped responding to a fellow fanfic author because she had this weird hang up about criticizing every single thing I did. I suspect it was because she felt like I was competition? I wasn't, BTW. But god knows something bothered her about me because she was dogging my Livejournal mean-girling about everything she could, even my attempts at cooking, LOL.

In my early twenties my closest fandom friend was also my best friend.

By my late twenties we'd grown apart a little but were still in contact. Around about that time, I had some nasty shit go down and ended up with undiagnosed ptsd. It was during that time that I went to visit her.

I was struggling so much that weekend and I was such an emotional mess that it was all too much for her and that was the end of our friendship.

Ten years later I'm still sad about it, but I don't blame her. I miss her though.

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[ SECRET POST #4413 ]

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