A couple of years ago, as you all know, there was a big to do between myself, Libby and Rob, due to the fact that Rob proclaimed himself to be Libby's e-boyfriend when in reality, I was. A way to disabuse him of this falsehood did not readily present itself (nor was I in a position to do so, publically or privately). When the situation broke down, he started spreading the story that I was "with his e-girlfriend behind his back" and used it to justify the behavior described below. This is patently false. Rob was never really Libby's e-boyfriend, and therefore I was not ever "with his e-girlfriend behind his back." His behavior comes solely out of the quality of person that he is.

And for the longest time, because I wanted to salvage things out of the meltdown that followed, both with Libby and with Rob, I couldn't defend myself, which has hurt my reputation and cost me friends. I'm still trying to put that right.

But I wanted to focus on debunking one of the myths in particular. Rob insinuated himself into a lot of blogs back when the blog craze started. I ended up urging people who had him in their blogs to get rid of him. Because of that, Rob started telling people I was trying to control other people's blogs, and it got jumped on by a lunatic or two out there with their own axes to grind against me.

Nice sounding story, but it's crap. And anyone who believed it should be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I urged Libby, Krissie and later Madonna to take Rob out of their blogs. But I had a right to do it, and anyone else with a shred of self respect would have done so as well.

After the big meltdown, I was still hoping for reconciliation with Rob. I had considered him as close as a brother once, and didn't realize what a vindictive person he was. Shortly after the meltdown, he started posting bits into Libby's blog to attack and/or insult me. In January 2004, he moved on to doing so in Krissie's blog. And in September 2004, he used his position as designer and host of Madonna's blog to post something in his own blog attacking me and others supposedly "on her behalf".

What this was was a cheap and transparent attempt to drag friends of mine into this conflict between us by a very vindictive and angry man. And any one of you reading this would have urged his ouster too, especially after Krissie and I went through compromise after compromise to solve the problem with her still "getting" to have Rob in her blog, and each time, Rob forced her to violate the compromise.

It's because of these attacks that I started urging those involved to take Rob out of their blogs. Yes, people have the right to do whatever they want to do with their blogs, but it doesn't follow that everything someone does with their blog is right. If a friend of mine attacks me for no reason, that's wrong. Friends don't do that. I would have a right to be angry at that, and demand it stop if the friendship was to continue, no matter what the venue of those attacks were. It would therefore follow that friends don't allow someone to attack their friends with their name and property.

What Rob did was just as wrong to the blog owners as it was to me. These were people who wanted to be my friend, but Rob took that away from them. Rob hurt them by causing all these fights between us. In the latter two cases, Rob is responsible for ending these friendships. I have no doubt that on more than one occassion, Rob was crying crocodile tears in chat with the person in one window over things being this bad, while in the other window, hypocritically escalating the conflict by continuing to post attacks.

To hammer this point home, ROB DID NOT JUST HURT ME. ROB HURT PEOPLE WHO DID NOTHING BAD TO HIM OTHER THAN JUST BE MY FRIEND.

Libby deserves some public shoutout. She fired Rob, and then went on to delete every word he ever wrote in her blog. This wasn't the sole or main reason she did that, given that he was really jerking her around in a lot of ways, but it was the right thing to do.

As to the other blogs... one of the friendships is beyond repair. The other would have to completely fire Rob, make it clear that it's for his misdeeds as described here, and delete everything he ever wrote in that blog. Given that it hasn't happened already, it's not likely ever to, but there it is.

Therefore, I want to make some public calls:

• I call on any blog owner who has Rob as part of their staff, particularly if he is allowed to post, to fire him from staff immediately. I would call on Rob himself to resign these positions, but he has no class and cares about nobody but himself, so it won't happen.
• I call on my friends in the blog community to help spread this message around, both to help clear my name of these unfair charges against me, and level blame where it really lies.
• And I call on everyone that if Rob is not fired from these blogs to recognize them for what they are: Rob's blogs, featuring whomever (to paraphrase Matt), and to make their decisions as to whether or not these blogs are worth reading accordingly.
  

Thanks for your time.

P.S. Nice rant. Of course, she leaves off vital elements to the story like how she didn't care that Rob betrayed me and did everything he could to hurt me, specifically through blogs, before she brought him in... or how about how she jerked me around trying to offer me the position of designer just to push Rob into doing it... and how she sat there and ALLOWED Rob to use the position she gave him to attack me and other people who called her friend and did nothing about it, for all intents and purposes making those attacks herself.

That's the thanks I get... for bringing her into this community, for talking her down from suicide at least four times, and for being on her side in multiple occassions where she was done wrong, even though the people involved were just as much my friend, and even though they did a lot less wrong to her.

All that was is a tantrum that someone dared to say she was wrong... in her world, wrong isn't something she does. It's only what other people do.

But thanks for the laughs, and the advertisement for people to come check out this piece. Thanks for alienating your few readers even further.

This piece wasn't even about you. It didn't even say a single thing all that bad about you. You should have just walked away and if this blog bothered you so much, stop coming here, just as I've stopped coming to yours. You still can walk away.

It isn't my fault the truth hurts.

EDIT: Just for the sake of fairness, let me say that this is coming from me and me alone and the opinions here do not necessarily indicate those of the rest of the Our Oasis community unless they choose to indicate otherwise.