I've been ordered to post, so...

First off, you guys are freaking crazy. The one post I tell you not to comment on is the one you choose to flood (yes, Dooey, that means you). The sentiments are appreciated, but you make it so hard for me to quit. And I want to quit. But you make me think twice. Which, I suppose, is really the point.

Anyway..it was posited (is that a word? I think so) that perhaps ovaries are to blame for the decision. Jesus Christ, I wish it were that simple.

I suppose I ought to explain what is to blame. I guess it's just a lot of things right now. Things just aren't good. You haven't heard much about any of it...I have been purposely avoiding posting about a lot of things. But I guess I owe you an explanation for last night's promise. It all has to do with my friends in Brookings.

Remember the Brookings Army friend? Well, he got incredibly angry with me, and I felt horrible about it. There was a religion conversation and he found out I was Catholic, which didn't sit well with him. There was a bit of Catholic-bashing (lots of mentioning the "whore of Babylon") on his part, which didn't bother me. I'm good at arguing religion and politics without getting my emotions into it. But then he tried to go after me about my church's founder. It went like this:
"Do you even know who founded the Catholic Church?"
"Yeah...Christ."
"Wrong. You don't even know about your own church."
"Uh, no. Christ founded the Catholic Church. St. Peter was the first Pope."
"Yeah, sure. Well, maybe you should explain to me how Peter managed to be the first Pope of a church that was founded in about 100 A.D. There's this guy Constantine; you might want to read up on him. He founded your church."
"Look...Point A, Constantine wasn't even born by 100 A.D., so that knocks off that theory right away. Point B, Constantine was the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity. He ended the persecution of Christians, so Catholicism had to exist prior to that for him to do so."

Brookings Army friend started getting really mad (and kind of mean). At some point, I asked him what religion he was. He's Mormon. Now, if Mormonism works for you, great. But, as I told him, "Don't slam the founder of my church. Joseph Smith--" I didn't even get past that (I was only going to say "has a pretty weird story behind him"). He got really angry and started yelling. I couldn't get a word out.

Then, out of the blue, he started going after my Army jacket. "Every time I see you in that I just want to yell at you. You didn't earn it, you didn't train for it, you don't deserve it. It's fucking disrespectful." Yeah, that really hurt. If I had known that the jacket bothered him, I would never have worn it around him. To clarify, the coat is not a "statement." I don't even think about it; to me, it's just a coat. I felt horrible to find out that it bothered him. I have nothing but the highest regard for the military. I tried to tell him that, but by this time, he was freaking out.

Then came my biggest mistake. As he's yelling at me, he is standing up, and I am sitting. Uncomfortable with being at a lower level, I don't think. I stand up. As I do it, I recall that he's 5'5" and extremely uncomfortable about it. He just froze and stalked off. He doesn't smoke anyomre, and he asked someone for a cigarette. I made him so angry, which I felt awful about. I respect him so much, and for him to think that I didn't...that really hurt.

I'm sitting there with my friend Jason, and I feel awful. Jason is friends with BAF, and Jason's the one who started the religion talk, so he's pretty uncomfortable at this point, too. I feel horrible. Jason and I have this conversation:
"So..."
"I feel so bad. I didn't mean to make him angry. I barely got a word out, and now he's mad at me."
"Look, I know him. He's not mad at you, he's mad that he got trounced in the argument. He didn't have a leg to stand on, and he knew it. I didn't know he was so uncomfortable with his religion."
"I should apologize to him. I should go over there."
"Don't. I know him; he'll come back. He's got a temper. You stayed really calm during the whole thing. There's nothing more frustrating for someone than when they're freaking and the other person just goes pale and stays calm and even. He'll come back when he's cooled down, and he'll be sorry, and you can apologize then."

BAF doesn't get angry. Some of the people there, people who were close to him, had never seen him like that. Later, I mentioned that I didn't understand how I could have made him so livid. Someone points out:
"Well, look at it this way. He was wrong, and you proved that beyond all doubt. He made the mistake of going for facts and getting the facts wrong. You knew the facts, and he knew that you knew. People hate being wrong. But I think what really got to him is who you are."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Look at it this way: first off, you're taller than him. He's self-conscious about his height, and whether or not you meant to make it an issue, by standing up, you made it one. Then you've got to take into account that you're four years younger than him and, well, you're a girl. His pride got hurt, that's all. He's not mad at you. He just felt humiliated."

Sure enough, he came back about ten minutes later. I'm sitting on one end of a bench, and Jason and another guy are sitting next to me. BAF sits down at the other end. After about ten seconds of uncomfortable silence, Jason and the other guy start having a very loud conversation about nothing in particular.

I go over and sit next to Brookings Army friend. I start:
"Look, I'm really sorry."
"No. Don't say that."
"But I a--"
"No, seriously. I'm sorry. I'm the one who should be sorry. The stuff I said was a lot worse than anything you said. A lot worse."
"...I am, though. I do respect you, too. ...Are we good?"
"Yeah. We're good. I'm sorry."

It still bothers me, though. He couldn't even look at me.

Ok, I'm sick of typing. I feel crappy again. Anyway, as if that weren't bad enough, the night ended with Chantel getting really mad at me. I said something that wasn't intended as a criticism, a mere observation.

She came over after the whole BAF thing and found out that we were talking about religion. She got all self-righteous and refused to talk to us. She said something about how she took unpopular stances on controversial issues and everyone attacked her for it. I made a comment along the lines of, "It's not the stance that gets people, it's how you defend it. You attack the accepted position so thoroughly, and that's hard for them to deal with."

Anyway, Chantel freaked out and started making snide little comments. I hadn't meant to hurt her, so it really bothered me that she would go for the throat the way she did. The things she said were very expressly meant to hurt. Eventually she decided she was so disgusted with me that she couldn't even be in the vicinity. She left for awhile.

(Side note: at this point, Jason asks, "Isn't she an atheist?" I confirm his suspicion. He looks vaguely confused and half-smiles before offering, "Well, if God doesn't exist, why does the religion topic bother her so much?")

Yeah...the night ended with Chantel telling me that I was a hypocrite and a "cold-hearted bitch". (Sadly, my first thought at that comment was, "Someone's been listening to too much Jet...not the same, but close." It wasn't until later that I was really hurt.) I also found out that she's been keeping a scorecard on me. Every little thing I've ever said or done that made her angry: she remembered them all, and she made sure to bring every single thing up. That really hurt. I was at a loss; I tried to think of something she had done before that had really hurt me. Believe me, she's said some really mean things. The difference? I had forgiven and forgotten. Literally...I couldn't think of anything. To find out that she'd been keeping this big grudgefest was tough.

I don't know, supposedly Chantel and I are good now. I apologized. She didn't forgive me, and she never apologized, but she insists "we're good." While it hurts that I never got either forgiveness or an apology, I'm prepared to just let it slide. I don't want to cause problems.

I don't know. There's been so much in the past few weeks. I've really been finding out that people I respect don't actually like me very much. That hurts.