pelf-ism is contagious

It feels like shit..

You see, this was what happened..

Somebody (name withheld for obvious reasons) from the PPP forums sent me a private message:

Hi,
I’m trying to run through the PPP forum as fast as I can while working on something unrelated in another window. As usual, this hasn’t been as beneficial as possible, but I’d like to help with the charity you chose for blogathon. However, I’m afraid that I’ll forget about this because I have so many projects I’m working on.

If you wouldn’t mind, could you email me in about a week and remind me about blogathon? I would really appreciate it and like I said, I want to support the charity you posted about by helping on blogathon.

My email is [censored].

Thanks so much,
xxxxx

So I sent him a message in return asking him whether he’d like me to send him an email a week from now, or a week before Blogathon starts on July 28th.

He replied:

Hi,
Let’s make it the week before blogathon starts. That way, I can make sure to stock up on caffeine beforehand.

I feel very fortunate to be able to help Eden Handicap, and I want to thank you for giving me the chance to do what I can to assist them.

Best regards,
xxxxx

I was worried that he might not know that we all need to register before participating because I read from the forums that he had never participated in one, so I sent him a quick message:

Hi xxxxx

I think you’re missing something. Will send you an email.

Pelf

Which was followed by a lengthy email a couple of minutes later:

Hi xxxxx

Are you intending to participate in Blogathon 2007? Do you plan to raise funds for Eden Handicap by yourself? You can do it all by yourself (means you’ll blog for 24-straight-hours) or you can team up with somebody to do it :))

You see, the Blogathon works like this:

(1) If you’re interested to join Blogathon, you will have to register at http://blogathon.org though it’s still early and the site is not open for registration yet. During the registration process, you will have to specify the charity you would like to represent.

(2) On 28th July 2007, you blog for 24 hours non-stop, and you must publish a post every 30 minutes — there are actually Blogathon monitors who will monitor all participants to ensure that they do not post scheduled posts as well as to disqualify bloggers who went to bed halfway through the Blogathon.

(3) And when you’re busy typing during that 24 hours, your visitors visit your blog, and you encourage them to pledge to the charity you’re representing (no transaction yet at this point). Your readers only need to pledge an amount (they’re actually required to register for an account to pledge an amount), any amount at all though it would be best if your readers can actually donate the amount they pledged :))

(4) At the end of 24 hours, Blogathon will send an email to your readers who have pledged to donate to the charity. And from there, your readers will send the money to the charity (NOT to Blogathon).

(5) What we did last year was, we directed our readers to donate to Eden Handicap directly (which means we DID NOT handle any funds at all). And the pledges we received were in Malaysian Ringgits instead of USD. When our readers pledge to pay USD 20, they can actually pay to Eden Handicap RM 20 (or more) — this is because the system in Blogathon does not include the Malaysian Ringgits currency

Here’s something you might be interested in: http://thegivinghands.org/2007/05/blogathon-anyone

Please let me know if you need more information

Cheers!

He replied me:

I don’t know why you would want to offend me by saying that I’m missing something, but I received your email, it’s basically a redundant recap of what was already posted, which I did NOT miss:

Everyone chooses a charity to blog for, and stays awake for 24 hours, blogging every X amount of minutes, while being sponsored by sponsors that I’ve attracted. The money for the event goes to the charity I had chosen, which was going to be Eden. I had felt fortunate that I had heard about Eden through your post, and had (PAST TENSE HERE) felt that it would be an honor to raise money for such a noble cause.

I am a very busy person, and I asked you to help me remember, which you agreed to do. However, I did NOT ask you to insult me by saying I had “missed something”.

Let’s just forget this whole thing. I don’t have time to sit here and explain to you that I am not missing something, and this whole exchange has taken away more of my time that it deserves.

Good luck on your charitable endeavors but leave me out, especially if it involves being insulted.

I was like, “WTF?!” Edit: Do you see that he found the words, “missing something” insulting, rather than the lengthy email?

I was so surprised and sad when I read that message because I felt as though I was “being bitten by a turtle when I was feeding it”. I mean, I was so happy that somebody wanted to do something for Eden Handicap, so I took the liberty to send him a detailed email, so that he didn’t miss anything, and so that he could successfully raise some funds for Eden Handicap since he was quite passionate about it.

I almost cried, I tell you. Instead, I sent him this email:

Hi xxxxx

Before I proceed, please allow me to explain that I frequently have people misunderstand me because I didn’t know how to “correctly” express my thoughts.

First off, I certainly didn’t mean to insult you by saying that you’re “missing something”. From what I gather from the forum threads, you’ve not participated in Blogathon, so I just wanted to make sure that you understood what it is. Otherwise, when I send you the email one week before Blogathon starts, you may not have time to register yourself (since you said in your first message that you’re busy, so I understand).

But anyway, I think I will not try too hard to explain to you, because I’m not sure whether you want to read any more of my emails (you sounded angry in the previous message).

But think about this: If I had intentionally insulted you, would I still immediately write you a lengthy email, detailing everything you should know about Blogathon, so that you have a clear picture of what it is like?

If I had intentionally insulted you, I would have just asked you to go read up about it yourself. But instead, I took the time and effort to explain to you, and I was so grateful that somebody came forward and expressed his interest to help the handicapped.

Once again, I’m sorry if my message offended you.

Respectfully yours,
Pelf

Seriously, guys, where did I go wrong?

It’s been a long time since I last felt like this about something. And I can’t stop thinking about it. Do I need to seriously reconsider going back to school to learn how to express myself without people misunderstanding me?