It’s not always easy to ‘do the right thing’. It hurts to face the facts sometimes that you are wrong; people were hurt in part due to your actions or lack of; that underneath it all, you are a coward.
This is what happened to me. I don’t know how many are aware of the latest controversy going around blog land, but inadvertently I find myself in the middle of it.

Some months ago now, a group of us were IM’ing each other back and forth, having a jolly time, discussing favourite heroes and who we would like to take with us if we were ever stranded on a dessert island. It was a lot of fun and we decided to blog about it along with our favourite books.
From that, a blog was born – the DIK Ladies. A huge flurry of emails were flying back and forth and because I was one of the original group on the AIM discussion and then on the favourite hero blogs, I was included in the DIK group. I didn’t contribute a whole bunch. I was somewhat uncomfortable as I’m a frequent visitor at AAR and they use that term. I sent an email saying that might not be such a good idea, but I truly believe it was lost in the flurry that was going back and forth because there were A LOT. I didn’t know many of the people involved and being quiet by nature, I let it slide.
This is where I made my fist mistake. I should have made sure my voice was heard. But RL distracted me. At the time I was stressed at work from training a series of new people, not getting my own work done and I just let the issue go.
Time went on.
Then I heard that Laurie of AAR was upset about the name of the blog. As I was only a peripheral member of the blog, I kind of let things lapse again.
But then yesterday I was blog hopping and visiting AAR potpourri board. I will be honest again and say that I didn’t read Laurie’s whole post on her own blog. At that moment I thought “shit! I should have done more back at the beginning.” But, knowing how important AAR is to Laurie and knowing recognition for something is important, I sent her an email saying I understood that she was upset.
And here I made mistake number 2. I quickly dashed off the email without going into more detail.
This is part of the email I sent Laurie. And I realize by explaining my part in this that I will anger some good people and I am so truly sorry for that. I consider so many bloggers dear friends
Next thing I knew, we were doing posts on it. I was a tad uncomfortable, but not nearly so much as when some of them decided to start a blog. I sent them an email saying I didn't think it was such a good idea; that AAR had come up with the phrase DIK and perhaps they should come up with a different name. Alas, I was ignored. It was created and set-up without any input from me - other than the e-mail I sent saying they should look for a different name.
Laurie emailed me back asking if she could quote me. I was in a terrible dilemma. I didn’t explain myself well enough in that email. She said I could be anonymous, but I bristled at that. I don’t like being anonymous. Never have been, never will be.
And then I saw DA post. To be honest I’ve met Jane and think very highly of her but I don’t think it was well done of her at all. Even if I wasn’t personally involved, I was appalled.
At the same time, I was made aware that Laurie has a ‘button’ she wants people to add to their blog. And while I chastise Jane of DA, I also chastise Laurie in this move. My immediate thought was ‘come on – give me a break!’

So back and forth went a flurry of emails with the DIK ladies. Some of them were shocked to hear that Laurie was so upset, some were pissed off and MANY of them were surprised because they were unaware of the whole situation and a good majority are either very infrequent visitors of AAR or never visited at all.
Please read this again.
MANY WERE UNAWARE OF THE LINK BETWEEN THE PHRASE DIK AND AAR.
That is the truth. My original email probably went nowhere.
In all my years of online presence, I have never been as sick at heart as I have been over this situation. At this point in time, for my own peace of mind, I’m very tempted to get out of the blogging world/romance community altogether. I’m tired of that knot I’ve had in my stomach over my own lack of action/wrong action and the actions of some others.

I know some people will be angry with me and I hate that they will be. But so be it.
Now, I’ve had my say and I’m done with the whole situation. I’m tired of the childishness shown on some people’s parts and I’m angry with myself.