I dreamed of a train derailment. I dreamed of train cars flying through the air and crashing into buildings.
I believed this dream to be about me being distraction derailing a train of thought for someone with money and power whose thoughts, whose ideas and decisions, had significant real world impact.
And I vowed to do all in my power to not let this situation become a train wreck. I vowed to not be a destructive force in his life or in the lives of the many people his life touched.
I quietly blogged to answer his unasked questions about me so he would never need to ask anything at all. I made sure his hands were clean and there was no appearance of impropriety for a man who could afford none.
I understood him to be doing something extraordinary for me that no other man on the planet would do and I respected that fact.
I chose to leave Hacker News while homeless and extremely ill to prove to him that I would never intentionally harm him or anyone or anything he cared about and would do everything humanly possible to avoid unintentionally harming him or anything or anyone he cared about.
That hiatus lasted eighteen months. I ended up unexpectedly returning to Hacker News when I reposted something because I had moved it elsewhere and I felt it was a courtesy to make sure people could find it if they wanted to do so and it was treated much more kindly and warmly than I had ever been treated before.
I have again left Hacker News, not for any noble reason but because it simply doesn't work to eat shit and pretend to like it while everyone is abusive and disrespectful no matter what I do.
I never met him. He never left his girlfriend for me. I never slept with him. I never got rescued from my poverty by a wealthy knight in shining armor.
He gave me an unprecedented opportunity as a woman to stay in his social circle in spite of knowing I was unlikely to get with him and he did so at some cost to himself and I did everything in my power to make his sacrifice count for something.
I became the highest ranked woman on Hacker News and I figured out something about public sphere versus private sphere stuff and I figured out something about medical stuff that helped me get well when that's not supposed to be possible.
My mother grew up in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath and she couldn't be bothered to argue with anyone about stupid bullshit. Because she understood that whatever idiotic friction you have with your neighbor, it's NOT worth going to war and having society collapse around you while you watch your mother and sister raped by Russians and food security disappear and the four horsemen of the apocalypse arrive to displace everything good and decent in life.
I remain my mother's daughter and if you believe I am calling for bloody revolution, you are seeing what you want to see. You are surely not seeing me because I know quite well how strongly I value peaceable solutions and what lengths I will go to for that.