best served cold

I'm still waiting. Not cold enough yet.

revenge proves to the person you care. the best revenge is indifference. it is also the least harmful to yourself, because it isn't even revenge.

Caveat: Indifference is also the most provocative form of revenge.

that is why it works

If you want to provoke someone into acting against you, yes, that is the most effective method.

um, i don't understand. if someone is indifferent to me, why would i want to pursue anything any further? let it go, surely? indifference back, end of matter. all move along, nothing to see here...

Well I suppose what you said there really struck a chord, because what you describe is precisely how my ex treated me once our relationship ended.

One particularly memorable incident was at a nightclub where she knew I'd be. I was speaking to a friend of mine at the bar, and she came up and interposed herself between me and him, turning her back to me to speak to him. It was a display of sheer contempt. Her indifference had the effect of annihilating every single good memory I had of our time together. If earning someone's eternal contempt is the goal, then indifference is certainly the best tactic. To show complete indifference to someone after a lengthy and intense relationship shows you never gave a shit about them in the first place. It also shows you're a nasty piece of work.

Anyway I'll shut up now because you've inadvertently struck my achilles heel.

Trevor is bang on the money.

:(:(:( i wuz hoping for stories like, "and i poured porridge into his CD burner and my heart wuz at peace"

if someone is indifferent to me

to clarify here, i mean "if they show indifference towards me". if that becomes the case, i don't give anything (love/hate/anger/respect/whatever) to that person, because it is a waste of time and effort, i would return the indifference.

Well I know all that, Gareth. That is the sensible/rational/logical response, after all. But emotions cannot be turned on and off like taps, at least mine can't. I'm rather envious of people who can. Very strong feelings that build up gradually over a period of time in a relationship do not simply die overnight when that relationship ends.

And for someone to exhibit total indifference to another person they know had/still has strong feelings for them is an extremely unpleasant game to play. My advice to anyone would have to be - don't play those kind of games with someone.

Thanks for what you said, Chris.

no problem old chum, I fear we may have had similar experiences.

i would never initiate such a thing, but if i become such a, a nothing to someone, i cannot give them the satisfaction of anything. i didn't say this was easy, but i don't find it an unpleasant game, i just focus on other better things until it has gone away, and i truly am indifferent. indifference is assuming a negative connotation here i notice, i mean it in a more positive way (ie. the person is forgiven, but they do not count anymore)

horrible imaginative things YOU did, not horrible things done TO you!! this is a light fun thread!! yes yes we are all put-upon saints beneath it all: i want when the halo SLIPPED!!

I came incredibly close to telling the governors at the school my nemesis taught at about the teen porn mags he had in his posession, I didn't out of some sense of decency, I wish I had now, it would have been funny.

"indifference is assuming a negative connotation here i notice, i mean it in a more positive way"

Well Gareth, this IS a thread about revenge after all, and you DID say upthread that "the best revenge is indifference", with all the negative connotations that revenge implies.

Anyway, that's enough heavy stuff from me for one day. My favourite moment of revenge was against a Gooner at work who kept dissing all my West Ham supporting colleagues, so I signed him up to a Spurs fans' mailing list. The ironic thing was, he STAYED on the list to let them know how much he hated them, which he really enjoyed.

He sounds like a thoroughly nasty piece of work ;).

at a work christmas party a few years back a fellow employee (and a friend, natch) made it a point to drunkenly reveal my crushed-out longing for a female coworker to said female coworker in great and grand detail. needless to say, the next two or three months of employment were nicely uncomfortable. the next time i was in his apartment, i brought along a can of sardines packt in mustard and oil, and strategically left them (the indv. sardines, mind) at odd and hard to locate places around his abode. a month later, when i was back for the next time, the smell of fish and condiments was still strong enough to bring a pleased (if nauseated) smile to my lips.

hehe. And what team might you support, Jonnie?

he's a nasty moaning yiddo innit?

Oh dear!

Well Gareth, this IS a thread about revenge after all, and you DID say upthread that "the best revenge is indifference", with all the negative connotations that revenge implies.

yes, i know. its a weird one for me because i don't believe in revenge and i don't want it. so, what i'm trying to get across is not 'indifference to spite someone', but getting on with your life and not devoting any energy or time to people you don't like. its positive because you are thinking of other nicer things, not hurting yourself.

apologies for hijacking this thread!

Well if you're a hijacker Gareth, then so am I. I accept what you say. However, I have found (and I fear Chris has too) that indifference can and is used by some (but clearly not you), as a tool of vengeance and spite.

porridge and sardines now!!

When I was on holidays there was this dog outside the Hotel that never fucking shut up. It was like a machine, barking loudly at 2 second intervals all day. So one morning when we were coming in from da club at breakfast time as was possible in Prague, we took lots of eggs still in their shells. Our initial plan was to give them as a present to our friend who had gone home in a sulk, I don't know why we thought he'd want raw eggs, but anyway he told us to get rid of them.

So we went to bed and within ten or fifteen minutes the dog started off. Then Stephen hit it with an egg. it shut up. this is a silly story.

Ronan, an eggy doggy story is not a silly story.

Raw eggs as peace offering are a mistake, if you don't mind me saying so. I feel you were lucky that it was the doggy who ended up eggy .

Yeah I think we were just trying to annoy him more. It was one of those holidays where you realise some best friends are not for living with.

My most successful act of revenge was in junior school, when this other kid in my year developed a disturbing habit of mooning other kids in the playground at lunchtime. One day he mooned the wrong person - my sister, and when she told me I planned an act of vengeance I believed would stop his mooning days once and for all.

I waited until our class had a library lesson, and me and three friends took him to a corner and stripped him completely naked. He frantically dived to put his clothes back on, and was just hitching up his trousers when the teacher entered the room. My best friend was laughing hysterically and he got a detention. I felt a bit guilty about that, but it ended the mooner's mooning which I was pleased about.

NB: There was no porridge or sardines involved!

I rarely carry out vengeful plans because by the time the opportunity arises I am no longer feeling vengeful towards the intended victim. But one stands out clearly, when I was 9 I lived in England for a year. At school the girl who sat next to me was very mean - she would pinch me and stick me with the pin from her kilt. Not very nice. I was of course, a dear little girly-boy and never put up a fight. I would just bite my trembling lip while tears silently coursed down my cheeks. In my heart I lusted for vengeance and one day in French class the opportunity presented itself. The teacher asked for the translation for window - being bilingual i knew the answer and my tormentor demanded the answer from me on pain of being pinched roughly. I told her it was "lavabo" which is washbasin - to 9 year olds that counted as a bathroom word and the room erupted in laughter when she gave that as her answer. In return I was jabbed so deeply with her kilt pin that I bled for days (well a few minutes anyway).

Oh I forgot to mention the time I filled my enemys favourite sardine with porridge. you should have seen the look on his face!!!!

i still say -- cornflakes, a bottle of milk, an empty sink used as a cereal bowl. practically need a blowtorch to clean up the sink.

No one has ever done anything very bad to me so I have not had the opportunity to test this revenge thing.

Back when I first moved to England I was going out with this guy. One of his female friends didn't like me (I never figured out why, as she had one mode of behaviour to my face and another away from it) and continued to introduce him to other women. Tacky. A few months passed and our neighbourhood was leafleted by Dateline. I filled out the form in her name and sent it in. A week later, Dateline rang her office, and her very gossipy secretary answered the call. Soon it was all over London that the bitchy woman who hated me had needed Dateline. My boyfriend wondered if I had been at the bottom of this and I was like, 'moi?'

Today I am of the opinion if you have a secretary then you deserve EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOU grrrrrrrr *speaks the voice of the one who has to do SECRETARIAL COVER for absolute p00ph34d today* DO YOUR OWN TYPING and arrange your OWN bluddy meetings.

Quite right. I much prefer to fuck up my own work than pay someone to fuck it up for me.