Why, oh why, do we feel the need to continue to remind others that we're gone? Why do we flounce? What's the purpose, and does it really accomplish anything in the end? Why do we think that if we come back and remind people that we left, they'll suddenly realize what they're missing?
Before I really launch into this, I want to be clear: this is about a specific subset of people who leave a community because something pissed them off...
...But they just keep coming back for no good goddamn reason, just to let us know that they're gone, gone forever. Especially if they have some easy access to social media pages.
Like Facebook, for example.
Think about it like this: McDonalds burgers gave you food poisoning one time. Okay, so now you swear never, ever to eat at McDonalds again.
This is a totally acceptable reaction to have.
What would not be acceptable is for you to run into the McDonalds lobby every two weeks, screaming about how terrible it is and how you'll never eat there again. (Bonus points if you manage to attach a sense of moral superiority to your outburst.)
That's the kind of person we're talking about here.
That's you. You're the crazy person screaming about how terrible your experience was at all the people who just want to get their McChicken on.
These are the things I, a person in the community you left, would like to say about that behavior:
It was okay for you to quit the community.
No matter how trivial the incident was that caused you to leave, it's totally okay for you to have done so. You have a right to seek solutions which protect your physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and mental health. You have a right to say, "I don't want to deal with this frustration. It's not important enough to me to continue."
You should never, ever feel like you have to stay in a place or within a group where you feel uncomfortable. You should have the autonomy to do as you please and need.
That's okay.
It is NOT okay for you to keep returning
to the community to tell them your beef.
Leaving is one thing.
Coming back again and again to remind the community about the whys and hows of your leaving is not an acceptable behavior. If you want to leave, actually leave and move on.
Unless, of course, your intention is (somehow) to get the community to beg you to come back. Here's the thing about that, though:
No one is going to beg you to come back.
If you leave a community and return only infrequently to make shirty comments about problems you perceive within its structure, and how you decided to leave because of those problems, you're not perceived as a victim. The community you elected to leave behind now perceives you as someone who not only abandoned the group, but abandoned the fight to make the community better. Why should anyone come crying for you to return?
I get it; we all want to feel valued by our respective communities. We want to know that our voices are heard.
We want to know that if we're gone, we'll be missed.
That doesn't happen for quitters, though.
Especially in massive communities like the SCA, or the Scouts, or the pagan community: people are a dime a dozen in all of these
until they aren't. That's why the real public outcry is reserved for people who contribute, work really, really hard, and would have stayed if they could. They're those people who would still be here, getting their hands dirty, if they had a little more time, money, ability, or life left to them. You want to be noticed and loved? Stay and work.
No one's got time for the people who decided to leave. We've got work to do.
Look, it's an uncomfortable truth that we, as people, reserve our compassion for those who are compassionate to us. We give to those who give. We are loyal to our social groups first, and outsiders second. Maybe it sucks, and it creates problems sometimes, but that's just how societies work.
Family comes before random folks who scream at us about how shitty our families are. And even if you are technically "family", you left. The thing about that is...
You left, so your opinion no longer holds
value to others within the community.
Change is motivated by the persistent and communal efforts of people willing to work together to obtain a goal.
Let's look at a scenario:
Two people want shelter built for their community. Neither can immediately draw attention to this need, or elicit help from others.
The first person quits the community in outrage, and stands in a neighboring field, shouting about how no one in the community will build a shelter.
The second person stays and dedicates themselves to building the shelter brick by brick on their own, educating anyone willing to listen about the communal benefits of the shelter, and periodically asking for help from community members old and new.
Eventually, a shelter gets built...by the second person.
The first person is still standing in a field, screaming about how they weren't given the appropriate attention by the community.
So: in this situation, you're the first person. You decided to leave rather than work for your vision of what the community could be and should have. You come back now and then to tell everyone all the terrible things that the community has done to you.
Your opinion will only be received with irritation and maybe a little bemusement, not as a valuable contribution of a working member of the community. To the community, it will sound like sour grapes from a self-created outsider who did not value said community enough to work for its betterment.
The second person, however, will now hold more influence with the community because they will be perceived as a leader, a motivator, and a creator of change.
In short: if you abandon a community, you are still welcome to your opinion, but have absolutely no right to expect it to be valued by the community you chose to abandon.
You left because it got too hard,
and now you're shitting on people who won't quit.
You left because it got too hard, and that's okay.
But here's the thing: You don't have any sort of moral highground here. You made a choice to leave. You don't get a cookie for that. Others made a choice to stay. No cookies there, either. No one is better or worse, they simply have different priorities, needs, and tolerance. Your decision to leave does not make you
better than, and their decision not to follow your example does not make them
less than.
You don't get to turn around and shit on people who decided it was worth it to them NOT to leave. They decided it was worth their effort and emotional wellbeing to try and make things better.
But really, if you still want to feel some kind of element of superiority about bailing - enough so that you feel entitled to rub everyone else's nose in it, let's look again at that scenario from the last section.
The actions taken by the second person probably set them up for a lot of stress and frustration - a hard road to walk, no doubt at all. But in the end, the rewards are invaluable. They get to leave behind a legacy for future members of the community, and they get to enjoy a position of respect and appreciation.
The first person jumped ship when they didn't get what they wanted. Doing it all themselves, even if only at first, was just too difficult, and they decided to quit.
That's where you are. You decided that you weren't going to keep chipping away at the wall. You weren't going to build a shelter. You were going to take your toys and go the fuck home because when things got too rocky, you found you weren't up to the task.
And everyone in the community knows it.
Meanwhile, there are still a lot of people willing to be the Second Person in the scenario. There are a lot of individuals willing to come together and say, "Hey, there's a problem here; let's fix it. It'll be difficult, but we got this if we stick together."
But there you are, screaming at them for continuing to try.
You're not selling enlightenment here; you're being an asshole.
That is why your opinion doesn't fucking matter.
