Before anybody asks - no, I will not name the guilty parties online, and I probably won't do so offline, either. This is not because I feel that they deserve better, but because I know that I deserve better. I'm delighted to have these people out of my life, permanently, and to, in effect, be sending people over to ask them what on earth could possibly be wrong with them would be to undo that very desirable state of affairs. I'm sharing this story with you only to give you a taste of some of the behavior one can encounter.



All of this occured on the home mailing list of a recurring local literary event. Somebody I knew had a suspicion - just a suspicion - that one of the small publishing houses was about to go bankrupt. Online, he asked those present if they had any idea of how one might go about determining whether or not such suspicions were correct. One particularly loudmouthed regular then ordered him to name the publishing house in question.

Kind of nervy to begin with - who is she to give an order like that? Patiently and reasonably, my acquaintence asked if he could answer her question by private e-mail, with the understanding that the firm in question wouldn't be named until his suspicions had been confirmed, because he didn't want to get the rumor mill going. Even if his suspicions were completely incorrect, a rumor like that can sink a small business, and so a little reticence was in order. The regular said no, the guy couldn't write to her privately, and repeated her arrogant demand. Some of us supported the man who had asked the question, as he was clearly in the right, and we promptly got mass piled on. Years later, we still find ourselves the target of malicious online gossip for doing nothing more than what common sense and common decency would have demanded. Oh, and in case you were wondering - no, the publishing house wasn't going out of business. Good thing the 'lady' didn't get indulged, right?

Sick, twisted, childish, and typical - this is what happens when amateurs start thinking of themselves as professionals, and start taking themselves too seriously. Reality gets left behind. This incident wasn't even unique - if I were so inclined, I could tell you stories about attitudes just as grating that I've witnessed among the theatre majors. So, why do I bother with writing and acting at all? Because I've found that when I've engaged in them on an amateur level, with people whose lives don't center around these activities, that I've greatly enjoyed both the activity and the company, at least until a few people started taking themselves far too seriously.

Taking ourselves that seriously is precisely what we won't be doing here. We are not writers or actors, and we're not going to think of ourselves as such. We are people from a variety of professions who just happen to enjoy writing, acting, or both, and if you think of what you're doing as being more than just a hobby, this is not the forum for you. We are not part of any "Arts community", nor do we desire to be. We're regular, unpretentious (if well-educated) people who enjoy living in the real world, and don't have time for the drama and self-referential obsessiveness of the true artiste and his worshippers. Thank God.

Oh, and by the way - since this is purely an amateur forum, I trust nobody will have any great problems with the fact that the profile book attached to the old forum will not be replaced, especially given past difficulties. None of us are trying to build literary or theatrical careers in this new forum, so why not do things the easy way?



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