When I was a sophomore, I lived in Hughes Hall. It was the worst dorm you could get... a former classroom/office building, they stuffed four of us in two bunks in each room. The walls and rugs were all various shades of brown. Its only redeeming quality was that it was right smack in the middle of campus. I had a dry erase board that a hung on the hallway door. Everyday, I would put up a quote of the day, because we were close by the elevator in the first floor and we got tons of walkby traffic. That is, until someone wrote "fuck you" on it. I ignored it and kept posting... until they took the dry erase board and threw it in the trash. I retrieved it and continued to post, until they tore the board into pieces, even mangling the metal frame. I pieced it back together, though, and hung it up again. Then, finally it disappeared altogether.
I put myself out there... I always have. Sometimes people agree with you, sometimes not, but I've never understood the hate and the meanness. Don't like the quotes? Ignore them... but tearing my message board to pieces? I just couldn't grasp that and it always troubled me that there existed that kind of meanness.
Tonight, someone posted on my blog in a way that upset me over something really important to me. People say everything is free game when you put yourself out there like this, and while I believe that, the meanness still troubles me. There's a missing post now that won't return and it was a post that meant a lot to me. Thanks... and thanks for busting up my dry erase board.