It’s a sad, disheartening thing to realize that some of the people you admire are fakes.  FYI, I’m not naming names, I’m not giving hints, I’m not taking stabs at anybody.  This is just something that has been bugging me for a while and I decided to blog about it.

I’ve made some really good friends since I started writing.  Some are great friends.  I’ve got a handful of very close friends, and more than half of them I know from online…a couple are readers, and a couple are writers.  These are the sort of friends you know you can always count on, the kind of friends who will love you even when you’re being an ass…and they have no problem telling you that you’re being an ass.

Some people that I’d previously admired have just risen higher on my personal ladder-Nora Roberts, for one.  SL Viehl/Lynn Viehl, for another.   I’ve always loved their writing and since I started spending time on line and seeing them online, well, it went from adoring their writing to respecting the hell out of them.

But there’s a flipside.

People who I thought were friends really aren’t. People who are out to use anybody and everybody to their fullest and then when they are done, you cease to exist.  And they are good at it.  I’ve got a pretty decent bullshit meter and while I can usually recognize a user from a mile off, there are a few that slid under and that both irritates and saddens me.  I don’t always spend a lot of time investing in a friendship-I can be very much a loner and when I do spend the time on a friendship and then later learn that while I was developing a friendship, they were just being a leech…well, it just really sucks.

Writers I use to love to read, I just can’t read anymore because I’ve seen too much asinine behavior from them.  I’ve heard them knocking down fellow writers, mocking others, showing the most ridiculous petty jealousy.

There are writers who present this ‘persona’ to the world and they get so involved in it, they expect everybody to just go along with it.  Up front and honest, when I’m online, whether here, on myspace, facebook, in a yahoo group or at another’s blog, I’m ‘on’ so to speak.  I’m wearing my professional hat and I’m going to do my best to act like a professional.  I try to maintain that professional demeanor but that doesn’t mean that I’m being a fake.  I’m me…just the professional me.    I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not, I don’t make myself seem other than what I am.

I don’t like it when others pretend to be something they aren’t. I’ve made the acquaintance with some who aren’t ‘on’.  They are acting.  They’ve created this whole new persona to present and it’s not really them.

I don’t like fakes.  I don’t like users.  I don’t like petty jealousy.

I’m discovering there is no writer eutopia.  Damn it.

edited to add…the conversation in comments went a little off track.  Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it could easily become heated and since I work to keep things friendly here, I’m shutting it down before it happens.  Sorry, folks!