Ouch!

I have had a number of emails from someone I thought was nice and with whom I had a fair bit in common. However, if I did not respond immediately I was sent another email full of passive aggressive reproach. I understood where they were coming from so tolerated them(the reproachful emails) as I felt I understood the need behind them and sent reassuring replies. However, this morning I sent this reply:
I am beginning to get annoyed by your emails. I don't like being pestered for a response, especially when you do not shown me the courtesy of replying to my emails. I sent you a long email answering your questions about about my health issues and have yet to hear back from you on that email.

I told you I would let you know, and I do keep my word. You need to relax, and give me time okay? I have told you before, you do not need to worry that I don't like you or that you have upset me other than with these emails suggesting I am ignoring you. If I don't want to hear from you I will let you know. I do understand where you are coming from but I cannot keep reassuring you. You are a good person.

You can email me about anything you like but do not keep up with the 'reminder' emails.

hugs
colin


I just got the following in response to it:

OMG!!! First of all, I was not trying to "PESTER" you as you called it. It seemed to me, that every time that I sent you a post with a question in the post, you would either just not respond, or you would say that you never received my post. Since I have read others complain about post ending up in their spam folders, I thought that maybe that was what was happening to my post to you, that just maybe, my post were going to your spam folder, and you were in fact not getting them. So, just to clear up your first accusation to me, (me pestering you) that was the only reason that I sent another post, it was never my intention to "Pester" you.

Second: As for your sending me a "long e-mail about all your health issues" I have never received such e-mail. I did however received 1 e-mail where you made a very short comment about having arthritis, and I did respond to that post, telling you that I had RA and Osteo Arthritis, as well as irritable bowel syndrome, and actuate MS, that I was given two years but that I had proven the head of Duke University Neuro Department, the same Dr. who had operated on Senator Kennedy just recently wrong. I went on to say that I had always joked about how this Dr. did not know what he was talking about, (in saying that I only had about two years to live) but that now I was eating my words, because it was very unlikely that Senator Kennedy or his family would have let anyone but the very best operate on his brain. Any of this ring any bells with you?

You know what, it does not matter if you remember this or not, because I am done. You have sat at your computer and typed a letter to me that I not only find offensive, but down right rude. I don't need your condescending attitude. And as to your claim that you have tried to reassure me that "I am a good person" and that I need to relax! my only concern was that I did not want you to think that I was just being nosy by asking you about your health problems. I was worried that you might take offense to my asking, but the only reason that I did ask such personal questions (and those being what were your health issues) were because of the statements that you made on your blog. Had you not go on so about your health problems, I would have not ask,and furthermore, I only ask because unlike you, I am a caring person, who is not so wrapped up in myself that I can not try to help anyone else.

I do not need, and have never needed you, to "reassure" me that I am a good person, but if this letter to me is any indication of how you "reassure people" maybe you might want to just stop "reassuring" as it's very unbecoming.

Please, do not ever concern yourself with my problems, or my wanting to buy any of your knitting needles ever again. And you might also like to know, that Addie is coming out with a set of circular knitting needles in a case sizes 4 to I think 15, I may be wrong about that size 15, but I do know that they will start at size 4, all in a case for around 150.00. I have already ask my LYS to hold a set of these aside for me when they come in. So my only reason for wanting to buy any of your needles would have been to supplement needles that I felt I wanted more than 1 set of.

Colin, you have hurt me deeply, I only wanted to offer a hand to someone who I felt needed a friend, I know all to well, how hard it is when you don't have blood pouring out your head or some other horrible sight that shows people how sick you really are, so because of this, people act like they don't really think that you are as sick as you really are, I thought that because I am in the same situation, that I could offer you my hand in friendship as one who could understand, and also someone who has also been through a horrible childhood myself. But you have acted like someone who is sitting on a throne in judgment of others and acting like it is your right to bestow your kindness to them at your discretion.

While it is true that according to the looks of your work, it looks as though you are a amazing knitter, and that your work is above reproach, but maybe all the praise that you have received has gone to your head, and has now made you think that you are above good manners and kindness. I feel as though you have treated me like I am some sort of crazed groupie, like I am someone who is stalking you because of your greatness, what a laugh, but I will tell you this, I had in fact bragged about you to all the ladies that hang out at my LYS. I had told them all about this nice young man who I had meet on line who lived in England who could knit better than anyone I had ever meet, and that his socks were just to die for. And their response? Their response was for me to just be very careful because all is not as it seems when talking to someone on line, and although I did know that what they were saying to be true, I just felt that you were someone who needed a friend, and I got all that feeling, from what you posted in your blog, but I am in no means some kind of a groupie, and I resent you acting as though I were.

You know, I felt like my luck had finally turned around this past week, while I have a wonderful family, my children are wonderful, my other half is truly my sole mate, and I have good friends who have always been there for me and always cared for me, my financial life has been some what of a hardship, and my other half and I have had to struggle for these past two and a half years due to a nasty insurance company trying to cheat me out of my disability claim. So when I opened my mail box last Monday, and discovered that they had in fact restored my payments and that I could now afford to buy not everything and anything that I wanted to, but that I could afford to buy a few things every now and then that were only for self gratification, that my luck had finally changed. That was my only reason for writing the first e-mail to you, the one with all the sizes that showed US sizes to mm sizes. You had made it sound like in your last reply to me as though it was such a burden on you to have to find the different sizes from US to mm, so I thought that I was helping you by sending you all the sizes, that was all that I was trying to do, to make it easier on you.

So as I said, I am done, you do not need to reply any more to me, and neither will I reply to you. I do wish you a good life, and as many days of good health as you can have, and I only hope that just maybe the next person that extends a hand in friendship to you that you are not so eager to bite that hand off, and because stress causing me undo extra pain, and this confrontation has now caused me a great deal of compounded stress, I am ending this and any future conversation with you.

Maybe I need to learn when to ignore an emailer but I try to be accommodating as far as I can. Perhaps I also need to keep what may or may not be accurate insight to myself!