untangling the web

admittedly this entry was originally gonna be about something else, but i can't bring myself to write about it yet as it is still very raw and painful. so instead, i'm writing about something that has been in the back of my mind for a long time now.

for two years, i have heard about a person being a liar. 'oh he lied about this' 'oh he lied about that' 'look at the proof right here of him lying' and at the time i bought into it, going from liking, even loving this person, to hating their very presence.

i am ashamed to admit i never took the time to talk to this person, i simply allowed myself to be swept up in the mob as his livelihood was ruined. his job, his company, his friends, his coworkers, everyone turned against him and i felt justified.

but in the middle of all this as it dragged on, i began to feel something wasn't right. at the time i couldn't figure out what, so i distanced myself in an attempt to try and see the bigger picture.

it took me way too long to realize all i had to go on were someone else's words. that all of us took her at her word. none of us questioned anything, we all accepted the proof as the gospel truth. it bothered me a lot, but what could i do? there was nothing that could be done, right?

well, i could ask him what happened.

so i did.

i asked him about the flood that supposedly never happened. he told me there was a flood, news coverage and anything. i remembered the reddit entry about people saying the city he was from was bone dry, and how that was touted as him lying.

so i asked him where the flood was. turns out, yeah the city was bone dry just like the redditors said, because the flood didn't happen there. the flood happened west of the city, in the countryside. and there are news articles to back it up.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35259398
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/aberdeen-flooding-river-don-bursts-its-banks-and-homes-evacuated-amid-warnings-of-danger-to-life-a6801826.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/12089265/Flooding-in-Aberdeenshire-Scotland-in-pictures.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/12090860/Watch-Drone-captures-a-flooded-Aberdeenshire.html
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/tag/aberdeenshire-floods/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/08/residents-flood-hit-aberdeenshire--weekend-scotland-record-river-levels

all those articles took me a few seconds to google. he was telling the truth the whole time, and none of us listened to him. i personally apologized to him, feeling like nothing but the scum of the earth. i saw the reddit entry, i took that as truth. it didn't occur to me until a few days ago to actually ask him, and he one hundred percent was telling the truth.

in fact he only lied one time, at the end when he was being accused of lying all the time to begin with. and that i can understand completely.

by untangling the web, i have learned that i was captured, hook, line, and sinker, and i feel awful for having believed it. but now that he knows i believe him, i have brought him some measure of peace. but i feel like a monster for never asking his side of the story.