A few days ago, someone that I used to know wrote a post dragging my name through the mud. I had blocked this person years ago, so I didn’t even know about it until this morning. Frankly, I found it sickening.

This person makes a lot of allegations about me, from being an emotional abuser to an online predator. We live in a society that does a lot of victim blaming and doesn’t often take abuse victims at their word. So I understand that a lot of people are going to take sides based on that info, and a lot of what I’ll say in response is probably going to be discarded. Defending myself to the internet might be pointless. Regardless, I believe in honesty, and I thought I’d clear the air anyway.

Some of what this person says are half-truths, and some of them are outright lies. Frankly, what is being said about me is not acceptable. I’ll go through some of the more egregious accusations in a bit.

I had a falling out with this person years ago. We were all friends in high school, and eventually I convinced them to date each other, and they got married a few years later. At the time, I thought she might be a good match for my friend. This is before I really got to know her.

This person was manipulative and abusive (both emotionally and physically) towards one of my oldest friends, Steve. I can distinctly remember one time where I came home and Steve had a cut on his cheek, and he replied to me, saying that Bruce (their dog) had scratched him. Later, I found out from their other roommate that she had thrown something sharp at his head.

Eventually when Steve proposed to her, he offered for me to be his best man. I should have been honest with him about my reservations, and declined his offer. Instead I accepted, but then continued to talk a lot of shit behind their backs. This was, and still is, totally not cool. I’ve made peace with that mistake, and I’ve paid my price for it. It cost me one of my oldest friendships and I still regret it to this day. We had a falling out a few months later when my words came back to them, and I don’t blame them for their reaction. I was being a bad friend, and my presence at their wedding will forever be a reminder to them of that.

Afterwards, at the suggestion of Steve, I tried to repair things with her and failed. This person then used that opportunity to attack me every moment that I interacted with her.  Eventually, I stopped trying, and we haven’t spoken since.

What’s troubling to me is that months after all of this happened, Steve had reached out to me, and said he wanted to reconnect. My father died of heart failure later that week, and Steve was the second person I called while I sat out on the steps of my brother’s house trying to make sense of things. We talked for a few minutes about it, and right before I went to leave he said to me, “Veronica (Vivian) says she loves you.”

I still don’t really know what to make of that comment, other than this: she will say literally anything she can to hurt me, and to destroy what little reputation I have with the small group of people I care about.

A lot of her allegations follow a similar pattern. Take an embarrassing truth, and then expound upon it. For example, did I make a fake photography profile back in college? Yep. However, I never contacted anyone with it, and barely logged into it. I certainly never conned people into sending me anything, or took advantage of anybody. Did I send pictures of her to her future husband before they started dating? Yes. She posted nude photos on DeviantArt years ago, and while I was trying to convince my friend Steve to ask her out, I sent them to him. They got married two years later. Granted, nearly a decade since that time, I can look back on those decisions and admit that they were sketchy things to do. But I don’t think that makes me some kind of mustache twirling super pervert.

That’s all I’m going to let myself say on the subject. If you still believe everything she says and hate me for it, I guess that’s your prerogative. But I hope that’s not the case. I would hope that people know me enough by now to see through that.