ysobel | Can you break up with a website?

Dear Ravelry,

I thought we were friends.

Not partners, of course, just friends. And of course there was no expectation of being bffs, nor any expectation of being exclusive. I had other friends, and so did you.

But we had fun together. You'd tantalize me with patterns and yarn. I'd pour my heart into adding info to your databases and helping people. If someone was new in town, I'd send them to you, because I knew you'd be a great friend to everyone. We had a shared love (knitting, and to a lesser extent crochet) and we bonded over it. You have been an integral part of the last decade of my life, and I thought we'd be friends forever.

But then one day it was like someone new showed up instead of you. The outfit wasn't anything like your sense of style, the jewelry was cheap dime-store bling, and the hair style was not flattering -- girl, it was not a good look at all -- but that didn't bother me as much as you slapping me in the face every time you spoke.

The first time I thought maybe someone else had slapped me. It wasn't until someone said "oh she's been doing that all day" that I realized it had been you.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," you said, cheerfully backhanding me. The rings you wore cut my lip. "Lol."

I put a hand to my face. "But that hurt."

"Whatever, lol," you said, slapping me one last time before sauntering off. And one of the people nearby told me, as I stared after you in shock, that you'd slapped a few people hard enough to dislocate their jaw or knock teeth out.

I thought maybe you'd apologise, or at least somehow explain the change. Neither happened.

The new you was hard to be around. Your smile was now a sneer instead of the open delight it used to be; your laugh was barbed; you spoke with disdain to those of us who called you friend. Any texts we send were left on "read" status with no response

Still I waited. Still I hoped.

And today, I find out that you've sent some people a copy-and-pasted email about how you're being victimized through no fault of your own, and that some people who are angry with you have started circulating vicious rumors that you slap people, which is a lie.

Except... hon, I know what happened. I was there. I was one of the ones slapped.

You aren't a victim of anything except your own actions.

You aren't the Ravelry I befriended all those years ago. Some of that difference is normal -- you've grown and changed, as many of us have. You've taken ideological stances on political issues. You've become popular, one of the in crowd. But this latest change isn't for the better.

I thought we were friends. That I mattered to you, at least a little bit. That you cared about my well-being, as good friends do.

Now ...

I can't do this. I can't keep a friendship with someone who gleefully slaps people and doesn't show remorse. I wouldn't be able to do that even if I weren't someone who had been slapped.

I don't know what happened, but I do know one thing:

It's not me, it's you.

[Note: this was written before Jess's letter came out.]