Ugh, my life D:

[fushigi_na_chou]

~.: My LJ is turning out to be a bipolar ranting space. 8D At any rate, I don't really wanna talk about how depressed I am over my finances for the umpteenth time. I have no money, you all know it, life goes on sucking

Comments

[fushigi_na_chou]

Perhaps that's the paradox of forgiveness. I agree people should feel guilty when they do something wrong, but how long a person is made to feel guilty about something -- it's sort of arbitrary, isn't it? Everyone is going to have differing opinions about how bad an action is (and I'm not saying that what happened wasn't bad, or that guilt shouldn't be felt at all), it's just, how long is long enough? Who makes that decision?

But anyway, back to what I was saying about forgiveness being a paradox. It doesn't mean what a person did was okay, but it makes everything okay? I don't know. It doesn't make sense.

At any rate, I think guilt will be felt regardless of my forgiveness anyway, and I think punishment is being issued in the form of natural consequences. All of this wouldn't be happening if Guille hadn't done what he had. He's alienated from all of my friends and just about everyone else in my social circle, and he's pretty much killed any chance of acceptance by any of my friends, which means, in all likelihood, our relationship will never be supported. I'm comfortable with that being punishment enough.

[windup_bird]

I believe there should be guilt until the person wronged is ready to forgive them for their actions. The person who committed the action is not a victim (aside from possibly a victim of their society but that in and of itself creates a paradox because you can't change society without punishing wronged actions).

Well, honestly, Andrea it's not really your forgiveness to give so I would hope he continues to feel guilty after it. Even if I were to forgive him of his actions it wouldn't matter either, or shouldn't, because I'm not the one he hurt. And your relationship probably won't be truly supported by most of the people in your life so you have to ask yourself if you're willing to take a punishment for a crime you didn't commit.

I don't mean to sound harsh or angry, because I'm not angry, and I'm trying my hardest not to judge you or your decisions because you're one of my closest friends and I do love you despite pretty much anything but you have to realize that it's hard. Basically you have become an accessory to a crime that I personally find to be one of the worst and you've done it by choice. It is going to take a bit of work for me to get around that but I am trying and I don't want to write myself out of your life or anything like that. You do have to give your friends time though to see where everything falls.

[fushigi_na_chou]

Well, no, I realize it's not my forgiveness to give, but insofar as I'm affected by his actions, I've given that forgiveness. Ultimately, you're right, it's up to the party who was wronged the most to give forgiveness, if they so choose. But I also don't believe that, in lieu of not receiving forgiveness, a person should hate themselves, or be hated by others forever.

But I guess we all have way too much personal feeling invested in the entire thing for things to just smooth out nicely or quickly. I've gone as far as I feel comfortable going, and I'm willing to wait, without judgement, for everyone else to do the same; all I ask for is the same understanding, but I know that takes time too. So I guess we all just have to be patient with each other.

In the meantime, how do we deal with this tension, at least between you and I, because right now I feel like you want nothing to do with me, or are just too disappointed with me to want anything else to do with me right now. I don't want you to see me as just an accessory to a crime you abhor, I don't want you to see me as someone who thinks what he did was okay, because it's not okay, it was never okay, and it will never be okay. But I've gotten to know the goodness of him as a person beyond and before all that, and it's something I confidently feel is the stronger part of his nature; I can't just overlook it, and I've tried. I know no one else has had the opportunity to see it, and that's fine, I understand people have to make their decisions based on what they've experienced, it's just ... I don't want people, especially not you, to think that I think he isn't guilty.

[windup_bird]

But see the problem is that you're acting like what he did was okay, at least as far as I can tell, in your sticking by him. I honestly can't understand how someone who seems to be so passionately for women not being treated as objects by men (or other women but it's a man in this case) can just be like "oh but he's really a good person" and leave it at that. I guess that's what this boils down to. Because he treated Jenna as an object, drunk or not, and tried to use her for his personal enjoyment even though she was obviously not up for it. That is what bothers me most is that you seem to nonchalant about it all now. "Oh he did this bad thing but I swear he's good" doesn't come off as sincerely finding fault in what he did. :/

Well I'm coming to the party at your house tonight and I have a present and card for you so please don't think I don't want to be around you; I do. I really wanted to hang out with you on Wednesday but didn't feel like being out with loud things and around a bunch of strangers because I was so worn out, which is why I offered other suggestions, but I felt like you guys didn't really want to hang with me so I didn't push it after that. Things aren't going to magically be the way they were before all of this but I promise I'm not dropping you or abandoning you and that I'm trying my hardest to work things out on my end so we can eventually go back to the way we were before. It's just difficult right now but we've seen worse, I think, and we're going to be okay.

[fushigi_na_chou]

Ah. Well, that makes sense. In my head it's more like one crime led to another: he got blackout drunk (which I'm fine with, so long as people don't get hurt), which caused him to do what he did. I 100% believe his "personal enjoyment" had nothing to do with it. If I felt he'd done it with malice, or like it was something he was capable of sober, then I would feel exactly as everyone else does. But the fact that he was not cognizant of it changes things for me, if only because I feel he would never, ever do anything even close to that sober, and that he has no desire to hurt anyone, or use anyone for his personal enjoyment. That's why when I talked to him about it, I stressed he stop drinking, because I feel drinking is what caused this. I hold him responsible insofar as he allowed himself to get so drunk that he would perpetrate a crime against someone like that. If he remembered doing it, again, I would feel as strongly as everyone else does, but he doesn't, which means, to me, he wasn't in control of his actions at that point; if he was doing something completely out of his nature because he was that drunk, I'm certain someone could have yelled "fire" and he would have been oblivious.

I guess I still just have a hard time wrapping my head around him having done anything more wrong than drinking himself into oblivion and causing someone else to get hurt at his hands. The problem, to me, is his drinking, and not him as a person.

I know things aren't going to be exactly as they were, right this second, if ever, but I'm glad you're not writing me off as a horrible person because I want to defend someone in spite of what they've done. I don't mind giving you the time to work things out, and I'll continue to try to do the same on my end as well. I do agree we've seen worse, and I think that since we're both so determined to overcome this, we will be okay. ♥

[fushigi_na_chou]

But the thing is, whenever I do try to tackle it, I can see how bothered he gets by anyone assuming that he could be capable of something so horrible. I don't know, my automatic reaction to that much hurt is, "Okay, okay, so you're not that person. It was a horrible mistake, you didn't mean it. Just understand that what you did is still wrong, and you hurt someone, and it won't be as easy to fix as apologizing. There are deeper issues at work here, and you'll just have to wait and do nothing until people are ready to forgive you." And all that time, I empathize with him, because I feel like it could just as easily be me in his place.

[fushigi_na_chou]

But I don't know how to address the act objectively. :x

[windup_bird]

But the thing is, whenever I do try to tackle it, I can see how bothered he gets by anyone assuming that he could be capable of something so horrible.

This bothers me more than I can possibly say. The fact that he denies himself capable of an act that he has already committed is a problem. He is obviously capable; he's already done it. His denial of this is frightening to me.

He cannot fix the problem, or get the help I personally think he needs, if he so staunchly denies this.

[fushigi_na_chou]

I don't see why it's frightening, but I can understand it being frustrating, annoying, and even somewhat perplexing. This is what we've been talking about the most, recently, because this does keep coming up. I will agree and say he's in denial of the whole thing, probably and mostly because he doesn't want to think he'd ever hurt another person, especially not like that. But one thing I realize I need to learn before I can even expect him to understand is, in spite of having done this thing, he's not a bad person. I've been clinging to the notion of "He's not a bad person, therefore it couldn't have happened, I don't want it to have happened, and even though it did happen, I refuse to believe it has any bearing on who he is as a person." I'm trying to make myself think more like "It did happen, exactly as Jenna said it happened, it was a very bad thing, and obviously he is capable of trying to take advantage of another person, particularly women." There are so many other implications in there, stemming from just that, and even any "however" that may come from it. I'm slowly coming to grips with this, but I will probably continue to make my decisions in spite of this, because I believe whatever compulsion led to it, whatever thought or notion or belief about women or his right to certain things he may hold, it is a thing inhibited by his better nature. I trust him, not because I don't believe he's incapable of lying to me, but because I feel what he did came as much to his surprise as to anyone else's. I'm trying to come to terms with his actions by understanding that something in him encouraged it, wanted it, but no one knew it was there, not even him. When I can get my head around this fully, I believe I'll be able to help him to understand it too. It doesn't make him a bad person; it makes him human. We're all capable of hurting one another; we probably all have hurt another at some point in our lives, and I don't think some hurts are necessarily better or worse than others, just different. From what I've seen in him over the past five months, and from what I know of him, I know he's working to change that parts of him that may give in to the sorts of whims that hurt Jenna.

[windup_bird]

It's frightening because denial of an act can cause the repetition of said act. We've seen it happen over and over in history and the same is said about people's individual actions as well. He also cannot truly be working on those parts of himself if he denies they exist, which is essentially what he is doing if he's so staunchly denying what he did.

And there are differences in levels of hurt. There are actions that may hurt someone in a temporary way that does not leave them feeling threatened in anyway and then there are actions that actually threaten an individual's person. Anything that leaves someone feeling frightened, vulnerable, unable to remain in control of their body or themselves is definitely worse than some other wrongs people can commit. This does not make those bad actions good but there is definitely a scale on the wrongness of an act. To say there isn't is naive.

[fushigi_na_chou]

Okay, yes, now I see why it's frightening. I hadn't thought of that. Point taken.

And sorry, I think I totally excluded the point I was trying to make with all that. There are different levels of hurt, and depending on the victim, they are worse or less worse (I don't wanna say better, there really is no "better" hurt ^^;). But at the same time, hurt is hurt. It's all bad, and what Guille did is especially bad, but it doesn't make him any worse as a person for committing a crime. Yes, he may be in denial, and that makes the whole situation worse and far more complicated, but I don't find it surprising. If someone had accused me of the same thing, I'd probably be in just as much denial, and I'd be questioning my goodness as a person because of it. But maybe the why doesn't matter. Perhaps it was just some carnal flashback to our less inhibited ancestors. Alcohol completely separates the rest of a person's brain from the center of judgement that says "this is wrong," which, in and of itself, makes the situation all that much scarier now, I realize. But it doesn't matter. He did it, but I almost feel like the denial speaks to his better nature, which, I realize doesn't excuse him. Hurt is hurt, and it's still bad, it's still wrong.

Even now I'm struggling with trying to understand this. Everything I've just said has sounded perfectly plausible to me, and it makes sense, but then, for some reason, out comes "But he was drunk and the real crime was that he put himself in a position to compromise the safety of another person." To me, it's the same as a drunk driver killing another person in a car accident. Yes, getting behind the wheel drunk was bad, and yes the worse crime was killing a person, but they shouldn't have been that drunk. They should have made other arrangements. They should have prevented the whole thing. And that to me is what sticks out. The fact that he opened himself up to such compromise is what upsets me the most, because it actually resulted in someone getting hurt. Don't get me wrong, I'm upset he did what he did to Jenna, but really I just want to scream at him "Why would you ever get that drunk? Why would you do something that stupid? Because of your stupidity and your bad choices you went and actually violated someone." I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's as far as I've been able to bring my reasoning right now.

[windup_bird]

Well it sounds like you've come some way into accepting what he did as wrong so I'll commend you on that. I even mostly agree with you on it not necessarily making him a bad person. If I honestly believed that he was a horrible monster I, personally, would've urged Jenna to call the cops and would have ruined his life over it. Because it was bad enough that it could've warranted that, honestly, but I didn't feel that was necessary.

I also just wanted to say that anything I have said about this situation has not been out of malice or anger or hatred but out of concern for you. I'm just afraid of you being around someone that we know is capable of such a thing. I'm also afraid to be around him which is why I've chosen not to be; not because I actively hate him or anything like that.

[fushigi_na_chou]

No, I trust you, at least, of all people to never prejudge, or even post judge someone to be a horrible person. You and I are alike in that way -- we hardly ever think of people as inherently bad or evil. :) Tis why I love you. ♥

And I understand and genuinely appreciate the concern for my safety. Like I said, I really and truly feel that alcohol played a bigger role in encouraging him to just do as he pleased; sober, I feel he has as many inhibitions as any other good male friend we know, and genuinely cares enough about people to not want to consciously take advantage of them. As frustrated as I've been with him in the past, I've never once felt unsafe, and I still don't. But I don't expect anyone to just go on my word, because the truth of the situation is still raw, and it's pretty much the only thing anyone has to go on regarding judgement of him as a safe person.

I understand that this will take a very, very long time to clear up for everyone involved, if it ever does for Jenna at all. Guille may not be a bad person, but he did a bad thing, and I can understand that being more than difficult to overlook, especially since the bad thing involved taking advantage of someone.

I don't know that he and I can continue to keep bringing it up, because it's still so fresh that all it will result in is frustration from both of us; in any case, I want to be sure I can fully understand and accept the position I would present to him before asking him to accept it as well, so perhaps letting it be for the time being is best.

[windup_bird]

I guess the issue here is that I don't consider being drunk an excuse. He is more likely to do it when drunk, obviously, but he is still capable of it sober because alcohol doesn't change you that drastically. I don't think he'll necessarily ever do it sober but he is still capable of it. Also if you get so drunk you're not in control of yourself then that is also a problem, as you've said, so it's just a problem on top of a problem. I mean I still feel guilty for kissing Brion drunkenly at Public House that night (even though he supposedly instigated it) and I feel like I should. He had a girlfriend; I shouldn't've taken advantage of us being drunk by kissing him. Even though I don't remember it. That's not the point. Ever since I've been very careful 1. not to get that drunk (i.e. never drinking while on antibiotics again stupid, stupid) 2. to be careful not to be overly flirtatious in any situation with him whether drinking is involved or not.

Basically I just don't consider being drunk an excuse let alone a good one? And whether he intended to be malicious or not the act itself is a malicious one so whether or not it was his intent to be he was. No one can molest someone nicely if they don't want to be touched that way. No one.

Anyway. I love you ♥ which is why I feel the need to explain my side of things and why I let you explain yours (whether we agree or not). I will be seeing you tonight and I will come with wine and snacks and it will be good. :)