Thank you, Cynthia.  You say it so well.  The only thing I would add is the part about the chronic trolls is that the damage they do here and elsewhere with their illegal websites (we are not Public persons and we have rights to privacy that Maharaji has given up in his quest) is nothing compared to the real damage they do when they steal your trust.

These chronic trolls will come in here as either ex-premies, current premies with confusion, children of premies (ha, remember that one, Cynthia?) and all sorts of other characters they freely invent.  Well, by nature most human beings are caring and want to help.  And I think that's especially true here on this forum.  So there you are getting sucked into caring about this 'person' and helping them understand whatever and what not.  And it can go on for weeks or months even.  You give and you give.

And then in the end you find out that you've been fooled and this troll, some dirt bag from Australia or Texas or somewhere, has taken advantage of you in such a deep and personal way that, excuse me ladies, you feel psychologicaly raped.

There's really nothing that us 'old-timers' can do to share the experience that we've had over the years, especially the Wild West years of the forums.  And you can't imagine the trauma that some people have endured.  And you can't imagine the betrayals either.

Sure, I'm scaring people away.  Oh, well, I'm so sorry.  We really tried to make this place like Disneyland, but we're (speaking of the Royal We) just too incompetent and the bad guys are simply too smart for us.

And I've got to say that the Forum MODs are doing a great job and from me that's hard to admit because I've had a lot of posts deleted.  I still don't disagree with the reasons, but that's the House rules and I can live by them (sorta).  Besides, the source of those illegal posts has dried up. And I'm talking about the Catbox forum which was run by one of the chronic premie trolls.  I thought that their vile nature was a great example of the cult brainwashing and supposed feeling of peace that one is supposed to get from being a premie.  The catbox was nothing less than absolute disgusting and vile ugliness in the worst degree.

So, can you please see why some of us 'old timers'  might be leery of the new person arriving on this forum?  Look to see how many new people arrive every week.  And most of them never post.  Who are they?  What are they doing?  And of those new posters that come here how many end up being the trolls that we speak of?  Too many.  I'd say at least 75%.   That's a lot.  That's plain old exhausting for forum members to be wondering about the new arrivals.  Over on my forum I'm having people email me before I let them post because I want to have some kind of hurdle to keep the trolls out.

Thanks Cynthia for a great post.  But, seriously I feel blamed for stating how I feel when I stated what my feelings were.  I would estimate that the average lifespan of an ex-premie on these forums is less than 12 months and then they move on.  They've got more important things to do in their life, the forum gets repetitive and boring, they get insulted, or a million other reasons.  I've seen people come and go and come back and repeat the cycle oodles of times and it is what it is, but please don't tell me and others that we need to be kinder and more open to new people until you've been suckered into some troll game once or twice.

The great thing about the forum when there are so many people posting and so many posts to read that readers can simply not read posts from posters they don't want to read.  I think that's called free choice.

And it's also free choice to leave this forum.  No one makes anyone stay here.

And it's free choice, although maybe not a good choice, to question with vigor a new arrival in order to find out who they are and maybe determine what their intent is at this forum.  Sure, it might not be exactly be nice or polite, but when the red flags start appearing then what?

For me, however, my bottom line is that I'm not willing to be abused by premies or ex-premies or anybody anymore.  And part of abuse, IMO, is trying to invalidate what that person is feeling.  Ok, maybe that's being done to you here, I don't know.  You tell me.  But, what I'm getting here is that 'Oh, the ex-premies, the old-timers, are just mean and blah, blah, blah and they need to be more open and accepting of everybody and yada-yada-yada.'  Well, that's sounds a little naive and, excuse me, premie-ish. There's people in this world that I'm not going to like and there's people in this world who are really stupid. When I was a premie I felt that I really 'surrendered' that discriminating part of me and that all premies were my brothers and sisters and none of them could do any wrong.

Sorry, but I'm not like that anymore.  Sure, I make mistakes by judging too fast and I even make mistakes by giving the wrong person a second or even a third or fourth chance. But, that's who I am.  I'm imperfect.  I make mistakes.  It's ok.  I don't need to win converts for Maharaji.  And I'm not altering my posts (too much) here at this forum for the purpose of converting or convincing people to stay when they don't want to stay any longer.  And, finally,  I don't have to ignore total bullshit in order to suppress my feelings anymore for the purpose of presenting myself or foisting myself off as a real nice guy or really peaceful and mellow and (insert all sorts of new age phrases here.)

And when I mention people who try to make this forum all about them (and hopefully I'm not doing that myself right here) it goes back to a number of people (and I should probably include myself once or twice or MORE) you have indulged themselves by having a public meltdown or whatever on these forums because they were feeling ignored or whatever.  And to me the whole bit about the righteous indignation about the troll poster being booted is just that. Sorry, but that's how I see and I'm not like my more diplomatic and stiff upper lipped English ex-premie Gentlemen/Gentlewomen.  I'm just a crude American and I'm damn proud of it.

So, is it ok to be me?  Can you let me be me without judging me so harshly because I'm not as tolerant to bullshit as I used to be?

Like I said, there's millions of forums out there.  How about a forum discussing floral arrangements?  I'll Google it and give you a whole list.

P.S to Lexy and quirky:  I like both of you so much and I've really enjoyed what you bring to this forum and any other forum.  And I believe it's ok if we disagree and express ourselves to each like this.  I think it's part of being healthy.  But what do I know?  I only play a psychiatrist on a TV show.