Yes, I screwed up there. I think the error was innocent, and felt bad about it, and regretted it, but I did screw up.
At this point, I’m willing to concede that no arguments I have will persuade you or address your concerns about me participating at the forum. I can see your perspective and why you’d be concerned. I don’t think I’m an actual risk or threat, so I am not fully conceding the point, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to persuade you otherwise anytime soon. Perhaps I am just being biased in my own favor; you will probably judge me as irrational for not fully conceding the point. Be that as it may, I don’t think any further discussion is going to be productive right now.
My understanding is that a failure to address your concerns means I cannot participate in the forum. So my current plan is that I will not pursue this discussion any further at this time, and will act as I described in this post. One clarification is that, unless I’m told otherwise, I won’t consider the use of the “like” button to be a substantive participation in the forum that violates anybody’s preferences. Another is that I will continue any existing discussions in a good faith way but not try to endlessly tangent them in order to have a “back door” ability to post on the forum.
I’m stating this all explicitly for purposes of clarity and in case I’ve made an error in a premise that needs correcting. I’m not trying to get a “last word” in before peace-ing out.
One final comment is that one problem I’ve had is that I’ve basically opted de facto into “unbounded criticism” on the Gaslighting topic because of my previous actions. That is my fault and my responsibility, but I don’t know how to deal with it, nor do I particularly want to at this point. I expect that even for this post I will likely be accused of some sort of attempt(s) at lying, evasion, social manipulation, gaslighting, biased framing, playing the victim, or some other claim of that nature. I can’t predict what will be said about me or my motives, and can only predict at this point that I will find it bewildering.
Finding some claim bewildering doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I’ve had a few discussions recently where some claims were made initially that I found bewildering and I changed my mind. And if I could proceed at my own pace in such discussions and focus on one issue at a time, maybe they would get somewhere. But that’s not the current situation. That would require a friendly discussion context, not a probation context. I created the probation context, and so now it’s time to be realistic about the consequences of that.
For the sake of clarity and to avoid making certain future excuses: I’m writing this after a (very) full night’s sleep, and while I won’t say I am happy I don’t feel particularly upset either. What I do feel is very, very tired, more in a mental way than a physical way, and some melancholy about the situation and for creating it in the first place.