sparr wrote:Papa Bear wrote:
That's not actually what was said, either here or on reddit.
It is, if you read the responses in the context of things I said, rather than things people wanted to argue with me having said that I didn't say...
I don't need to go read the responses, I was there when they were written. Maybe you haven't made the connection, but I was not only one of the people who responded to try to help advise you, I'm the one whose words you have quoted (out of context, I might add) on the reddit version of this thread no less than twice as an example of what you've termed bad advice.
Why did people think you wanted to know about financial matters? As you've already been told, it had a lot to do with your own words:
Is it unusual of me to expect to know something is happening when enough money is being spent to consume people's dues? I mean, sure, a few bucks here and there is one thing, but if hundreds to thousands of dollars are going into projects, you tell your camp members that, right?
It's not at all a huge leap for someone to have connected "something happening" with "money being spent", and understood that as wanting to know when expenditures were made on behalf of the camp. Thus, it's no surprise that a number of people did so. That may not have been your intent, but you could have phrased it a lot better.
But that's a distraction in any case - regardless of whether those who responded thought financial transparency was the motivator, the point is that you were
not told that "asking for a refund was unreasonable", that you weren't owed any communication at all, or (as you stated in the other thread) that it is "unreasonable for a noob to expect to get involved or even find out what's going on". Multiple people have corrected you on that, including but not limited to the people you specifically quoted in your complaints otherwise. You're quite simply proceeding from a false premise - the advice itself wasn't bad, but your interpretation of it sure was.
It's always difficult to write online in a way that leaves absolutely no room for misunderstanding, but you have repeatedly adopted rather extreme interpretations of advice others have tried to give you, not only on this subject, but also on others. You also have a tendency to come off as abrasive toward those who sincerely try to help you, which does not help matters.
A misunderstanding here and there is perfectly normal. But when you repeatedly encounter the same kinds of problems on multiple subjects with lots of different people, you should consider the possibility that the problem may not lie with all those other people - it may, in fact, suggest the presence of a more fundamental issue in your own way of communicating.
Unlike some, I don't perceive you as a troll - I suspect you're genuinely just as frustrated by these conversations as many of the rest of us are. But I do think you might benefit from seeking out advice from a pro with experience coaching people on these kinds of communication issues. Sometimes having access to that kind of outside point of view can really help.
That all said, I'm sincerely sorry to hear of your experience with the disappearing regional camp, and doubly so for any way my advice might have contributed (even if I do think you seriously misinterpreted the discussion). I hope you had more luck getting in touch with - and potentially extracting yourself from - the other BM camp.
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