This time around it's the latter -- honestly the more irritating of those two phenomena. I can prepare for technical foul-ups or miscommunications and often prevent them from happening in the first place. However, there's little to nothing I can do to stop exes, estranged family members, or old friends I've outgrown from tracking my ass down and contacting me if they're really determined to get back in touch. I absolutely hate how intrusive stuff like that feels when it actually happens.
Contrary to popular belief, ending a relationship with another person is never something I do lightly. There is literally always a good reason why I did it, and I'm not the sort of person that will get over whatever that reason was given enough time. It's almost always a choice I'd been thinking of making for some time as well, even if it appears to be a snap decision on the surface. My handing you your walking papers means I never want to see or hear from you again. Not in a few weeks. Not in a year. Not in twenty years. I will do what I can to learn from the mistake I made by letting you into my life in the first place, but that is what I will forever consider my relationship with you going forward -- a mistake that I want to avoid repeating in the future. I won't miss you. I won't think back fondly on "the good times". I'll just be glad you're gone along with whatever brand of toxicity you were bringing into my life while you were still part of it.
The person in question this time was an old friend from my LiveJournal days -- someone I felt connected to for a time, but eventually began to outgrow on the same level I have most of my friends from that platform. This person had all sorts of problems that were steadily growing worse at the time we parted ways, including multiple addictions, behavioral issues, and a real knack for getting into trouble with the law. One day she made the huge mistake of passing judgment on the wrong things about my life with a bunch of racial slurs thrown in for good measure, and it came completely out of the blue. No provocation. No reason for her behavior that I could understand (beyond the issues I mentioned).
Obviously, I had zero issue telling this person where to go after that, not to mention why she could go there. Especially since I'd already been feeling disconnected from that friendship due to changing values and an increased lack of interest on my part. You don't talk to me like that, period. Not ever. I don't care what you think of me, my choices, or my life. I certainly had my judgments about how she was choosing to live at the time as well, but I also understood that other people don't owe it to me to share my values or live up to my standards, even back then.
She sent me a message via my business email over the weekend (probably because she rightly assumed I'd blocked her on all of my personal emails years ago when all this happened). It was one of those deals where the person claims to have cleaned up their life and to want to make amends to everyone they'd wronged while they were in the thick of all their addictions or whatever. At one point, I was way too willing to give toxic, damaged people the same benefit of the doubt I'd want them to give me if the shoe were on the other foot. I once naively felt that such people really just needed someone else to care enough about them in order to finally turn their lives around. I didn't yet understand that addiction and abusive behavior patterns run so much deeper than that, so I've naturally had a lot of trainwreck acquaintances over the years and received many, many contact attempts like this one years after those relationships went sour.I absolutely hate that shit and I'll tell you why. To begin with, it feels like an excuse not to take full responsibility for whatever it is you did or said -- "It wasn't me, it was the drugs/alcohol/pills." In my experience, the shitty things people say under the influence of drugs or alcohol are pretty indicative of feelings they actually do have about you. The drugs may have taken away the filter that would stop a healthy person from shitting all over their friends and saying a bunch of unforgivable things they can't take back, but they're not the reason those thoughts were in that person's heart to begin with.
Also, so what? The fact that someone struggled with an addiction, their mental health, or anything else similar doesn't obligate me to care. Even sincere remorse for past actions can't undo the sort of damage truly toxic behavior does, so once someone makes certain mistakes with me, that's just it. I will literally never forgive them or feel the same way about the person, and it absolutely shows even in the event I decide to give them another chance on paper. (Just ask my father, my mother-in-law, or any of the other estranged family members that technically received a second chance at some point. They don't hear from me, they don't see me, and they're kept at a great emotional distance from me at all times.) "Mistakes" like complete betrayals of trust should come with permanent consequences as far as I'm concerned, and with me they do. The cost of what you did will be the permanent loss of the relationship you once had with me, so you damn well better mean it when you say you don't care about that.
At any rate, she ended the message by claiming to understand if I didn't want to be friends anymore or even respond to her. That's fortunate for her, because I absolutely don't plan to and have zero interest in reconnecting with her or anyone else from my past, especially if they were a legit hot mess like this chick was back in the day. I haven't given this person so much as a passing thought over the years, so I really didn't appreciate being forced to relive the abuse she heaped on me. Hearing from her didn't make me feel one little bit better about the way she treated me. In fact, it was nothing but an unpleasant reminder of why I no longer enjoy connecting with other people on any meaningful level, even online.
If people like this really cared about the people they've hurt, they'd consider how hurtful it can be to hear from toxic people you know you're better off without. Unless you're positive the person in question really does want to hear from you on some level, resist the urge to do this to others. Perhaps a better way to make good on the wrongs you've done is to simply recognize their magnitude and learn to live with the consequences. You don't get to ask anything of others once you've damaged them and made them sorry for ever caring about you, even forgiveness or understanding. They don't owe you that or anything else you might be tempted to ask of them. Not now or ever again.
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