what strange claws are these scratching at my skin

it would be a mistake to think that this represents the natural behavior of chickens.

it would be a mistake to think that the social displacement harms we do to each other as marginalized people under a great deal of stress, under capitalism, represents the natural behavior of people.

so the thing with human relationships is that it's basically never as simple as "this person is a shithead to everyone in the world and everyone hates them"

people can abuse their partners and not be that bad to others. they can be abrasive to some and funny and charming to others. they can be thieves, liars, scammers, and jerks but still have friends who don't mind their flaws or don't notice them. because every relationship between people is unique. even someone who saw something bad happening didn't feel it personally. they didn't suffer the same pain.

so sometimes it's going to be really complicated. sometimes people are going to see the good in the person who hurt you. sometimes your friends or loved ones will not want to cut off an abuser, an asshole, a liar, even though they really harmed you. and you just have to grapple with this. it is the way of the world. you cannot make people feel the same thing as you. they don't have your experiences; only you do.

i'm not saying this isn't a lonely feeling. it is a terrible thing to go through. sometimes you lose friends, or simply put distance between yourself and them. it takes time to get over. you have to set your own boundaries around it. but that's the thing: they get to feel their feelings, and you get to feel yours.

folks make the wrong decisions here sometimes, for sure. siding with the person who just wants everything to go away, for their mistakes to be forgotten, is the easy choice. unilaterally siding with the hurt often requires changes and boundary setting and the pain of rejecting a friend. it's hard. and it's hard because of how complicated our feelings are.

you can watch someone hurt someone else and still care about both people involved. you just can. if you think this will never happen to you, wake up. it will.

i think that's where people are getting hung up on "forgiving" a character who was especially bad to one person. it seems so easy when you're standing on the outside. just cut that person off! but that's ignoring how each person's relationship with someone is so complicated. there is so much you will never feel that they do.

does anyone really deserve to be alone forever? well... probably a few people, yeah. but you don't get to decide who that is. you can only control yourself. it's a fool's errand to try to enforce your feelings onto others. you are better off doing what you CAN do, if you've been hurt: ask for space, kindness, comfort, sympathy, company, reassurance that it's okay you can't forgive.