Well, this has certainly turned into an interesting week in what is loosely called the Online Vampire Community! The Equinox always seems to bring about a lot of changes. The last one... was last March, I shall say no more.

It appears that the strenuous efforts of some of us to unite vampire-oriented people under some sort of overreaching aegis (with categories, without categories, with labels, without labels, with gamers, without gamers...) has, like a gigantic rubberband, snapped and scattered in many directions. Too many vampire-oriented people put up too much resistance, feeling that their own reality was being "excluded" by their being asked to be "included" within more diversity than they were prepared to accept. This was already highly apparent in the various quarrels and debates anyway, but Sanguinarius' long message really crystalized this issue. Throughout her post rang one overwhelming need--and not for blood. Call it the PLM syndrome.

People Like Me.

And that seems to be why all of us are here, really. We're all looking for People Like Me, people who are what we are, who feel what we feel, who know us without needing to be told, who don't doubt because they've been there. And it's an elusive quarry, there's no question about it. I've finally had to face the fact that in my case, it's extremely elusive indeed. This was not my original hope when I first put up my own website, but then, none of the fruits of my own website have been what I expected. Among many other things, I had no idea what a fever of imagination I was going to unwittingly tap into. I'd been online for a couple of years, and in all the vampire-related Internet venues I'd lurked in or posted to, anyone presuming to any flavor of "real vampirism" was pretty much marginalized into non-existence (if not flamed into cinders). But six months after my site went up, other "real vampire" sites had appeared all over the web like mushrooms popping up after an October drizzle. As for the response my own site was getting by then--I constantly had to think of a "Far Side" cartoon of two mosquitos feeding, one of which is swelling up like a balloon as the other yells frantically, "Pull out, Joe, pull out! You've hit an artery!" My fictional vampires have a preternatural ability to hit the artery every time--I never dreamed that I had it, too. *wry smile*

But I never intended, or even wanted, to create a sort of all-inclusive "vampire community". I wanted to offer information, I wanted to expand upon the original FireHeart article, I wanted to help people who were confused and going through the things I had gone through and seen others go through while still unaware of what we were, but ultimately, I was just the same as Sangi. I wanted to find People Like Me. I assumed, correctly, that I'd have to sift through a lot of People Unlike Me to do that, but what I didn't understand was how desperate many of them would be.

It has ever been my curse to feel compelled to try and help the desperate. So I wrote to these people, and referred them to other information and other Internet venues as seemed most appropriate, and wrote to them and wrote to them and wrote to them, until finally I couldn't, anymore, because I didn't know what to say to them. They aren't People Like Me. I'm not sure who they are and what they want and why they want it so badly, but they aren't my people. I wanted to believe they could be, but they're not. And perhaps my site made them think they were, erroneously, although I didn't seem to be seeing this happen. For one thing, almost nobody who read my site appeared to grasp what I was actually saying! (Although this is probably my fault at least as much as any reader's.) It also became apparent that most people visiting my site, especially young people, read the checklists and nothing else. This obviously was creating some problems. But the whole site was obviously creating more problems than solutions. I never expected this. I expected lots of flames, lots of snide skeptical e-mail, and thought it would be very exciting if I got three or four thousand hits in the first year. I had absolutely no idea.

So I am now offering my public apologies for my website. I apologise that I seem to have flooded the world with a lot of poseur-psivamps and wannabees, when all I wanted was to find People Like Me. They're not here in the online vampire community, or they're choosing not to communicate with me. I have learned a lot about some different kinds of humans with interesting anomalies--very real, and objective, and deeply life-affecting anomalies, to be sure, but not what I have. I guess you do fit into "categories" after all (aside from the fact that you're all still humans). I don't know what makes you the way you are. Maybe someday someone will find out. But you're not People Like Me. And I apologise for wanting you to be so badly that I tried to pretend you were.

My site is being heavily revised, and when it comes back it will reflect my position much more accurately. There will still be lots there for human vampire-oriented people, whatever your anomaly is and however you choose to define, describe, and name it. If I can offer any help or advice, I will. But I won't offer it unasked. Some people who see my new site may accuse me of elitism, but I don't feel that way--I'm starting a discussion board that will be open for everyone, I'll have information on blooddrinking and information on psychic and energy training, no one is being zipped from my links page, I'll continue to refer letter-writers to others in the online vampire community without prejudice. There'll be news and transcripts and booklists and classifieds and general FAQs and editorials and other stuff, all of equivalent interest to all vampire-oriented people. We all certainly have a lot of the same interests, and a lot of similar concerns and challenges to face, and I still prefer to concentrate on what we have in common more than our differences. But I'll no longer hope to find People Like Me under every Internet bush. I've tossed in the towel (finally) on that one. And, the checklists won't be back, nor any other publically available "diagnostic" material or device.

I accept now that none of you believe in me--but that's okay, because why should you? As Sangi said, if you live something, you know it, if you don't, you can't have any idea. That's true for sufferers of any chronic disease, for victims of racism, for para- and quadri-plegics, for the blind, for people who are very psychically sensitive, for blood-lusters, for psivamps. If you wake up with it every day, you don't need proof or explanations. If you've never experienced it, it's beyond your imagination. I can only continue to pursue what I feel to be my life's work and purpose for existence, and keep on hoping (as do we all) that I will someday find more People Like Me.

Vyrdolak
(Inanna Arthen)

Updated 8/29/07