...what is it about some people expressing an opinion about something in a community that makes them a fair target for everyone else?

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By the way folks, a couple of the things in this post have been brewing in my drafts folder for MONTHS now, and I’m only just letting them out to play. So, you really shouldn’t overanalyze this post about some of the generalities I’ve made in here. And at least one of them isn’t an observation from the stitching community, so you can stop trying to find out what person/incident/etc that I may be referring to. It’s just a well constructed vent here.

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Doesn't it feel like some people use newsgroups/public forums/BBs/wherever there is a regular crowd as their own personal blog instead of starting one themselves?

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Why can't some people just mind their own business? Why do they have to ruin someone else's fun?

I've got a dear purple friend who was asked by her shop to attend the Nashville Market as a buyer for them because one of the owners couldn't go. This was a dream come true - not only would she be inside Nashville Market, she would be getting a much needed vacation from her family. Believe me, it was more important that she get that vacation than going to Market. Market was just a bonus.

She's not going now. And she's crushed. Completely destroyed. Well, she *was*. Now she's just ticked off.

Apparently, some unknown individual took offense that she was taking orders that were going to be fulfilled through the shop and complained to the organizers of Nashville Market that she was going to be buying wholesale, which is a complete and total lie. They contacted her shop, and her shop has now said she cannot attend as a buyer (which is the only way she was going to be able to get a vacation from the family).

I don't get it - she was very clear about the fact that she was gathering orders that the shop would process and fulfill. She was clear that she was going in a buying capacity. So why did someone feel they had to do something like that? Was it a jealous individual? Was it another LNS/ONS? Doesn't really matter - I just don't understand what someone had to gain by doing something like that. Something like this seems to happen every year with the random stitchers who are helping out their shops at Market time...

It's just not right.

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Recently there was a discussion somewhere about sacred cows at the same time elsewhere there was a discussion about a certain designer’s workshops that are coming up. One individual said something that was a perfect truth – the designs are expensive. The pattern, the crystals, the beads, the silks, the huge piece of fabric you need to work the design – they all add up in some cases to well over $150. Or more.

Now, I have no problem with people who want to spend that kind of expense on a design. And some of them are very pretty and absolutely worth that cost, I guess. But there are conversions that make the design price a little more reasonable, and you don’t have to do the design in the first place. But it seems that a few people took a perceived offense at the simple idea that someone thinks that the designs are expensive. This designer was obviously their sacred cow.

Since when is expressing your opinion over the cost of something cause for such… vitriol? Maybe that's the wrong word, but it seemed rather heated in defense of the designer. Someone please explain it to me because I really don’t understand what nasty things were said other than stating that the design (and the workshop that’s being planned) is just too expensive for one person. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m surprised more people didn’t jump all over someone else who used the word “gouging”.

DH thinks that the designer is just catering to “snob appeal” now – not that that’s a slur, it’s just an observation about people preferring silk over cotton, crystal over glass, etc, but honestly, you can't stitch some of these things with the conversions - they just don't look right unless they're in the original medium.

And that medium is expensive.

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What is it with people who don't have kids, hate kids, don’t want to have kids, etc. thinking that they know better ways to tell parents how to raise kids? Granted, they may have a good insight because they were kids themselves and can expound upon what their parents did for them, but I feel uncomfortable with them stating that a child shouldn’t be raised this way or that way or subjected to this rule or that rule while saying that because of things like this they’re not going to have any kids. It’s not that they don’t have a right to speak – they do – it’s just a little weird.

It’s like someone who’s never cross stitched in their lives telling you that you’re making the little ‘x’ wrong.

Granted, if someone is very young they may think that they know the right way to raise a child, based on the way they were raised (or the way they think they should be raised), but I wouldn't want my children telling me how to raise *them*.

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Why are some people so compelled to know everything about everything? I've seen stalkers, I've seen know-it-alls... I've seen know-it-all stalkers. Maybe it's some displaced need to belong, or to be accepted, but honestly, it's annoying. It's annoying to those watching it, it's annoying to those being stalked... it makes the annoying stalker the brunt of a whole bunch of jokes or ridicule. And I'm willing to bet that the stalker doesn't even know that they're the one being ridiculed half the time.

I can understand those who sympathize, and there are some people who really have been through quite a lot of things, but when there’s always one with an opinion because they think they always know the right thing to say or the right way to end that conversation because they've "seen it *all*".

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Ok, constructed venting over. I think I feel better now... sort of.