It's interesting to me that of all the longer term interactions I've had that ended ugly, the only ones that really stick in my head are the ones that were primarily just emails/online interactions. The people I've known in the real world, I really KNEW. And as such when they (eventually) did whatever ugly thing they did, it wasn't really a surprise and I didn't really need to dwell too much upon it. Because I understood whom I was dealing with. Quite simply put: in five minutes spent talking about the weather, I can tell someone's limitations, I can tell what they'll never understand, what they'll never think is even worth thinking about, what kind of mistakes they're going to spend their life making. Sounds awfully judgmental but FWIW it is combined with a positivity, with an interest in seeing to what heights a person can be pushed...

But with the online people there is a lack of adequate information and I just don't know what is and what isn't beyond a person. And so when they eventually fail I end up pondering and pondering how it could be?

Based on their emails I think I must have done my best to assume the best. To fill in what was missing in a positive fashion. I think I practiced the golden rule. I think I acted like it was me, myself, a year previous/later, when it wasn't.

I think furthermore it's maybe like how clothes make sex more interesting. The hidden thing is what's fascinating. All these people, just even 5 minutes talking face to face, just that little would have meant more than years spent regularly emailing back and forth. Bizarrely I ended up talking to quite a few who wouldn't actually go beyond email. I think because I was always reaching out and trying to help people who really had serious issues.

And then thanks to what amounts to their dishonesty, I'm stuck thinking about them for years. Forever dwelling upon the unknown, although I'm 99.9% sure that what's hidden wouldn't really be all that interesting.

And so we spend much of our lives dwelling upon basically stupid people and the ugly things they do to us.

It is essential for me at least to have met a person and spoken to them to have some idea just whom I'm giving an opportunity to mess with my life. As to those few troubled people I mistakenly let mess with my life without first (or ever) doing such basics, I'm starting to think I might have to go find them. Nothing scary meant here. Preferably they'd have no idea who I was and it would literally be five minutes spent talking about the weather or whatever. That would do.

Then they could be properly dismissed. As they've already proven they should be.