This One Is For You

You didn’t reply

When you didn’t reply I hoped you maybe understood and that instead of facing up to it you might just quietly stop. Instead you blocked me on Instagram so I couldn’t see what you were doing. You did however continue to watch my Instagram stories and still do to this day…a bit odd and intrusive no? Was there not a point where you considered my feelings at all? Did you not think that after I’d found out what you’d done you should leave me alone and stop abusing my trust? 

So there I was thinking you’d quietly bow out. How very silly of me. How could I think that someone so brazen would do something so reasonable? 

After all that you still came to a show I did in March, hiding behind the anonymity that the internet provides. Did you have a good look? Did we speak? Did you ask more questions? I can’t remember. 

At the event

Then finally last week and I’m still shocked that this happened – you turned up to another event I was involved with – this time one where I was speaking. I was there to try and help other small businesses build their brands on Instagram, I would question if you knew I’d be there….but my name was in the title.  

I imagine that you thought you’d just be one of the crowd again and that I wouldn’t notice – you were nearly right. I didn’t notice for a while. I sat there smiling at you while you positioned yourself at the front of the room, I smiled right up until that moment when you were asked to introduce yourself. Having taken your name tag off (to try and hide?), I imagine that came as a bit of a shock.

You told everyone in the room your name and said that you were ‘a knitter’ and that’s when the penny dropped for me, Janet.

Shocked is an understatement, perhaps astounded is a better fit – I honestly couldn’t believe that you would have the audacity to sit in front of me and listen to me talk even more about how I run my business, after everything you’d done.

It took me a little while to comprehend that anyone would be so ruthless as to do that. Behaviour like that shocks me, it’s so rude and uncaring and selfish. So damaging, unkind and brazen. I still can’t get my head around it.

The thing that got me the most is that you would put me in that position. Knowing I was there in a professional capacity and had to keep it together despite the shock. Yet again I overestimated you and assumed that you must, SURELY, be willing to finally explain yourself and apologise when you were seemingly there to take even more from me? 

You should have left, Janet.

You should have made your excuses at lunch and not taken advantage of the situation. I was being paid to speak, you knew I couldn’t cause a fuss and that I had to get on with it, here was yet another opportunity for you to step up and do just one thing right in this situation, but yet again, you didn’t.

Nothing more to say to you

I kept my shit together all day, I gave my talk knowing you were there and accepted that you could take even more from me. I looked you in the eye when I spoke about copying and I felt your discomfort.

You must know exactly what you have done? Then at the end of the day I asked for “a moment of your time” to give you another opportunity to explain yourself, you chose not to take that opportunity and so now I’m taking it. 

Do you remember on Love Island when Adam undermined Rosie after he’d clearly screwed her over? He Gaslighted* her and tried to make her feel like she was the one in the wrong.

When you held your hand up to me last week and said “Actually Lauren, unless you’ve got anything nice to say to me, I’m not going to speak to you” I recognised that. For a split second I felt the shame you intended, I felt the embarrassment because the people around would believe that I was the one in the wrong. But just for a split second. Because it turns out that you cannot do that to me. You have no right to do that to me and I will not let that be how this is finished. 

*Gaslight

“[Verb]

Manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity”

Source: Oxford English Dictionary Online

You stood there and you tried to insinuate that it was me who should feel ashamed and embarrassed. If it’s me who’s in the wrong Janet, why was it you who ran away? 

I tried to give you the opportunity to discuss it reasonably, I didn’t cause a scene, I wasn’t aggressive in any way, and you didn’t even have the decency to do that, instead you manipulated the situation and played the victim, making me out to be the bully in front of my colleagues and fellow small businesses. It took everything I had to stay composed and polite and you threw it in my face before you quite literally ran away. 

Your manipulating words from last week were still ringing in my ears when I read what you’d written online about how dignified and graceful you thought you were “in the face of adversity”. I wonder who you thought was undignified? 

You went on to discuss how we, as woman should support each other even if our businesses are ‘similar’. It saddens me that you still don’t understand my point Janet, you don’t understand that this isn’t about competition, it’s about decency and humanity. You’re right, other women in business are absolutely our biggest allies. I’m a woman who’s built her business through manners, morals, hard work and relationships. What have you built yours on?

What I want you to know now

I’m quite sure you know what you’ve done, the threatening email yesterday certainly implied that you don’t want people to know it was you, because you know how bad it is… but I hope you know just how outrageous it is.

I hope that you feel worse than I do right now because I feel sick looking back at this and considering how you’ve acted, and it’s not me who should feel uncomfortable or ashamed. I feel so frustrated that I’ve wasted any of my time dealing with someone who hasn’t even got the decency to stand in front of me and admit what she’s done but instead gets family members to make baseless threats and try to bully me into submission.  

Not only are your actions rude and brazen, the damage goes further than that. It’s hurtful to me as a person – as another individual who you claim to ‘admire’, it hurts me that you would take everything I’ve learnt and developed and figured out and use it so shamelessly to your own advantage.

The damage that is done to someone when their intellectual property is compromised is horrible and it’s so important for that to be realised. You can’t always see it – it’s sleepless nights and tears, it’s confusion, worry and doubt, it’s pushing someone to the edge of their tolerance until they think that they should just give up. “If I give up then who will they have to copy?” Although maybe you’ve learnt all you need to now, after all you have my instructions taped to your desk. Maybe you’d just carry on, uncaring.

It takes something from me every time someone copies my work and sometimes it makes me want to give up. But then I think; ‘FUCK YOU’. Fuck you for thinking you can take this from me. This is everything I’ve built. I moved to Devon and I didn’t know anyone or anything. I was depressed and lonely and I built this business to pick myself up, give myself meaning and passion and to create something that I loved. This business whether right or wrong, defines me. It has brought me the greatest friends, the most incredible opportunities and so much pride. You can’t have that from me, and you can’t make a carbon copy for yourself because it will never be truly real.

So fuck you for thinking you can. 

You can’t have any more

You could have taken the opportunity to discuss this reasonably Janet, face to face, when you decided to put me in that position last week, and you chose not to. You decided to do all these things and you may hide behind your keyboard and remove your name tag and tell your friends that you’re the victim but you’re only a victim of your own decisions Janet.

You can claim that I’m undignified and don’t have any grace and tell yourself that I’m mad because I don’t like the competition but you and I both know, this is not about competition. This is about exploitation.

You’ve had so many chances to make the right decision and it’s been exhausting to witness you make the poor choice, time and again. But this time, just because you decide you don’t want to talk to me doesn’t mean that I won’t talk.

This does not need to go on any further, I’ve said what I needed to say and I will not waste any more of my time on you because you are not worth it.