"Everybody must like the same things I do, or else they are a pathetic bitter individual!"

I read a post over at ScienceBlogs today by this math guy who works at Google talking about why he won't be going to his high school reunion. In short, he had no friends in his graduating class (all of his friends were one or two years younger or older than him) and had probably about the worst high school experience I've ever heard of, including a dude breaking his finger for fun, and another asshole using gasoline to paint a swastika in the street in front of his house and lighting it on fire. WTF?!

So yeah, seems pretty straightforward that he wouldn't want to go to his high school reunion, right? Even if the criminal bullying hadn't occurred, why would you want to hang out with people you were never friends with in the first place?

Except if you read the comments, there are a whole bunch of douchebags saying that guy must be "bitter" and that he needs to learn to "forgive".

Excuse me?

Look, forgiveness is a good thing, but if you forgive someone who wronged you that doesn't mean they are now automatically your friend, especially if they were never your friend to begin with.

I didn't have nearly as bad a time in high school as this guy, but it's not a time I remember fondly and I really have no desire to go to any of my reunions. Why would I? It's not a time in my life that I wish to celebrate or revisit. That just happens to be my personal choice. I understand that other people had a great time in high school, and that's fine, they should celebrate it! But not everybody has to like everything. And if somebody happens to hate something that you are fond of, you need to learn to deal with it.

For me, I wouldn't miss the Autumn Festival of Ales that Custom Brewcrafters holds out in Honeoye Falls. It's always a great time.

Now let's say some other blogger is a recovering alcoholic or maybe they just hate the taste of beer. And they happen to write a blog post about how they won't be going to the Festival of Ales. Would I show up in their comment section and accuse them of being bitter? Say that, for their own good, they had to find a way to forgive beer for tasting so bad to them?

No, that would be retarded. And so are the people showing up on MarkCC's blog and saying the same things about him.