Tim Lieder

I just received an email claiming that I was banned from panels for the next two years for inappropriate behavior and harassing another panelist. I kind of knew that B signing up for the same panel was going to be trouble but I was really hoping that we could be civil on the panel.

I am assuming that it is B who decided to tell the people in charge of Convergence that I was harassing them. Since I don't harass people and I back out of any internet unpleasantness as soon as it starts (ok maybe after a couple of rounds of utterly useless insults when it comes to truly awful people) I am assuming that it was the friend that I fell out with last year.

Here's where I did wrong. I didn't unfriend B on my alternate Facebook account once I knew that they had blocked me. I should have done that. I should have left well enough alone. The second thing I did wrong was to comment on B's post about trying to do everything at once in an attempt to reach out and tell B why the friendship soured from my perspective. I didn't want to make B feel bad. I didn't even want to continue the relationship. I just wanted to tell B that they acted badly and that it was hurtful and extremely unfair. I believe I even wished B well and THEN I unfriended B.

Unfortunately knowing B the way I know B now, I should have known that B wouldn't take it well. Even though our friendship had fallen apart a year before, I should have left it alone. But you know how it is. You don't talk to someone for a long time. Feelings cool down. You think that you can approach the person in a rational way and that they will finally listen to you without rancor.

Instead B decided that I was harassing them. And upon seeing my name on the list of panelists, decided to lie about me. B could have pulled out of that one panel. B could have asked me (through a third party) to pull out of that panel. Instead B decided to accuse me of harassment to Convergence and Convergence decided to believe B without even asking me (so that verbiage about "after careful consideration" is bullshit)

Ok. So here's how we fell out as friends.

B was a casual friend until I asked her for help in finding a friend an apartment in Florida. My friend in Florida had a hard time finding a place to live because Florida rentals suck. The affordable places didn't even have bathrooms. I was asking all of my friends "hey do you have any leads in Florida" and while most were "nope" some asked around. B made a public post on Facebook that basically went "My friend in Florida is being kicked out of her place and she'll be homeless if she doesn't find somewhere else" which is technically true but for my Florida friend "homeless" means couch surfing and not living in a tent city. And the implication that she was fleeing a dangerous situation was a bit much.

I didn't think too much of it at the time. I was grateful that someone was trying to help my friend.

A couple months later, I am reaching out to friends on Facebook for another reason. I was processing childhood trauma and realizing how much it was ruining my current relationships (long story but basically I was trying to transcribe my long dead grandfather's letters to grandmother and his neediness was pathological and it reminded me of the way my mom expected me to take care of her long before I could take care of myself) which would have been so much easier had I not ruined a current relationship. Basically I made things weird with an old friend that I care a lot about. I caught feelings or I realized that my feelings were my feelings.

Either way, I was lonely and confused and sad and seeking an emotional support network (as opposed to one friend that I was relying on exclusively for entertainment and emotional support) and I reached out to a lot of friends. Again, some were helpful. Some were not. Others made me evaluate the friendship in a very harsh way (like one who kept talking about her hangover and told me that she didn't read fiction).

B decided to play therapist. It was very intense. I was telling B more than I had told anyone and B was asking questions. B was also saying a great deal from their past and encouraging me to talk about all of this. B was talking about self-loathing and parental issues and how things can be repeated. For a couple days, we talked about a lot and I admit it was helpful.

But it was also uncomfortable. I was too grateful for the free therapy to say anything, but then I said the fatal thing that ended our friendship.

I need a friend more than a therapist. I basically said that I was missing a friend that I could have casual conversations with and as grateful as I was for the therapy, I was more in need of someone to talk to and share memes with.

B did not take it well. B stated that they were a licensed therapist or that they had studied psychology and that was what B was good at.

So that was it. I didn't continue the conversation. B didn't reach out. I sent B a few more things, usually just funny memes.

B posted a passive aggressive Facebook post calling me out without saying it was me. It said something along the lines of "Men demand free labor from women. They even demand free emotional labor" - which was bullshit since I was not the one who wanted intensive therapy. B was the one providing the free therapy.

Last exchange (before the aforementioned comment) was when I sent B a giant plushy werewolf. B responded. I mentioned that this made me miss my friend/crush because friend/crush would love it (but it's better than feeling desperate without friend/crush) and B said "I don't want to talk about [friend/crush} and I said ok.

That was it.

B might have blocked me shortly after that.

Because as far as B was concerned, I had already taken advantage of B's wealth of therapy experience (B is an English teach by the way. B is not a therapist and I doubt that B has ever worked as a therapist) and I was trying to get more therapy out of B. Because that's the way B thinks.

As far as I was concerned, B stopped talking to me after I had tried to establish health boundaries in the relationship. Maybe it was too late. I was really trying to establish health boundaries with a lot of relationships that year. Didn't always work.

So a year later, I tried to reach out to B. Again, I should have unfriended her on my alternate account. I should have left well enough alone. As far as I was concerned, B was trying way to hard to take care of everything including playing free therapist. As far as B was concerned, I was using B's generosity and trying to just get more or something.

There's rarely an advantage in disputing people's poor opinion of you. Especially people who are that extreme and resent you for their behavior.

I wrote a much more formal letter and I might send it to convergence. This is my blog so I'm going all over the place.

Still, it's ironic that I'm being punished for trying to set healthy boundaries. It's even more ironic that the person that I tried to set healthy boundaries with is accusing me of harassment. But it's fucking aggravating that a convention that I enjoy is taking this person's word for it and not even consulting me.

Yes, I know. What am I going to do? Deny it. Of course. But there are denials and there are denials. And if it's two people who had a falling out and one makes accusations, you should at very least hear what the accused says. A lot of accused people just go an tell on themselves.

If B doesn't want to be on panels with me, that's fine. Take me off the panels that B is on (panels that I suggested, wrote up and signed up for) but take me off all the panels because I might be a danger to other panelists after I've been doing these panels for almost 20 years???? Seriously, what the fuck is Convergence thinking?

Ok fine. If I was on a Convergence programming I would take the charges seriously. I would consult with other programming people. But I would also ASK the person being accused of harassment if they are indeed harassing the other person. I wouldn't just pull that person off all of their panels and send them a form letter stating that they are banned from panels.

And only panels. You would think that if they believed that I was actually harassing another panelist outside of Convergence, they would have banned me from the Con entirely. I'm happy that they didn't ban me from the Con. I already bought the plane tickets. I'm not going to fly out to Minnesota for a weekend without a science fiction convention to greet me.

But yeah. So they got B being B and making a case that I was harassing B outside of the Con. They believe B enough to kick me off of panels but not enough to kick me out of the Con. If you kind of believe B why not send a warning. Why not send a "one of the other panelists is not comfortable with you, could you voluntarily leave that panel?" note.

Instead I get a bullshit letter claiming that after "careful consideration" they took me off of panels and if I wanted to be on panels again, I could formally request a removal of the ban in 2025.

This feels about as fun as dealing with Facebook standards or youtube copyright strikes. Youtube is fun because it's all about the people making the copyright claim removing it.