The email to Ms. Wonka regarding acknowledging the OW (barf!!) in response to her email. This was from my old Pretty in Pink thread here in the Big D forum from a while back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hi Ms. Wonka,
As I indicated earlier, I am now getting back to you.
First of all, I appreciate your effort to open more dialogue between the two of us. I can only imagine that sharing your thoughts cannot be easy at all for you and it is helpful to know your perspective on certain matters.
In regards to your comments about OWName, I can see how you would think that “it is a one-way friendship.” I wish to reiterate that I did and do acknowledge OWName. I think your approach was very off-putting in that it, to me, came across as trying to strong arm me into accepting something that I am very uncomfortable with. This was made abundantly clear to you in my previous communications.
This recent communication from you about this very particular topic came across as demanding and insistent to me. To me, that particular type of communication was a turn-off. As I relayed to you that there will be some subjects that we will not be able to discuss freely and this is one of them. There will be times when we may not necessarily agree on some issues. In my mind, being able to show mutual respect for some differences will be the foundation of any friendship.
This whole process was mystifying to me as you appeared to want to hold all the cards to clearly define the friendship and then chastise me for thinking/seeing things differently. How’s that helping the healing process and opening up the lines of communication? You stated to me to “trust the process”…it is difficult when I am seeing some harsh and in-your face communications emanating from you. All of this comes across as a bull in a china shop…a bit hot-headed response that appears to be quite contrary to the person that I remember as being calm and pretty level-headed.
Granted, I do recognize that we pretty much had zero communications for almost 10 years and this is a new uncharted territory for the both of us. I do see quite clearly that we are attempting to build bridges each from our own sides which, to me, is a positive thing in our favor. From my vantage point of view, friendship is a partnership, not a monopoly.
At this point, I am not sure how all of this will unfold. Our friendship will never be the same as before. It’s forever altered.
I will try to answer the same question you asked: What do I want from Ms. Wonka?
For me, what I would like to see from you is respectful communications that are constructive, positive, and supportive that will be beneficial for the two of us that are the hallmark of a mutually supportive (within reason) and respectful friendship. I am sure there will be some bumps along the way. However, I am receptive to exchanging some information about some of our interests.
I would appreciate your patience, understanding, and respect for this process. And if there is something I say that makes you uncomfortable, I'd certainly appreciate if you bring it to my attention because I want this to be a two-way street.
Thank you for listening and trying to keep the lines of communication open.
