So I'm just going to say in advance that I'm sorry for all of this..."unloading" (if you will). I'm going to keep the person and group involved anonymous, so as not to ruin any reputations (even though I'm extremely bitter, I'm not that mean). It's alright if you don't understand, I just want to get this off my chest.

So I had e-mailed this group that does cosplaying photoshoots, asking them some questions about how they opperate. A certain well-known and respected cosplayer owns/is a part of this group. As a fan of said cosplayer, I thought it would be a great honor to have a photoshoot done by said group. As per usual, I didn't sign my name at the end of the e-mail because I never do that with people I don't know. About a minute later, I get an e-mail back saying, "Hi, who are you?" Okay. I don't get offended easily. But this really annoyed me. I figured that said cosplayer would respect the fact that I would like to stay anonymous, as it is that said cosplayer stays pretty anonymous themselves. Figuring I had no way out of the question, and because I was feeling ornery, I answered and said "who are you?" almost half jokingly. So I can say that what happened afterwards was partly my fault. The next e-mail I get says, "First things first. You send me all these questions and you don't even know to whom you sent them? And why are you asking all these questions?" Well, that really surprised me. The words seemed really hostile. I mean, I know that the meanings of phrases get lost and misunderstood really easily in the written word so granted, the hostility could just be me. By this point, I was actually hurt. Extremely offended, but hurt as well. Obviously I knew who I was e-mailing, since I put "Dear so-and-so" at the top and if I had any doubts, I would have stated them in the e-mail. What I had meant by my question was who in the group was replying to me? And why can't I ask questions? Where's the harm in that? I wanted to put this all down in my reply but didn't, thinking I'd be scorned for it. Instead I tried to be as nice as possible (the result of working in customer service), hoping that being nice would cool off whoever it was that was writing to me and they would return the politeness. Apparently that doesn't work because I was continually greeted with rudeness. I've noticed this at work too but it's almost as if people expect you to get angry at them when they're rude to you. As much as you'd love to be rude back, you'd likely get fired if you did. So you're nice but they never back down. In the end, they did answer my questions (in the shortest responses possible).

Thinking it over, I don't think I've ever been so insulted by one person so much before. I've never been so bitter. Besides the fact that I was treated like this as a customer, I was also very hurt by the fact that this was someone I greatly respected. Like rubbing salt in the wound. As much as I don't want to tarnish the idea I have of this person, the damage is done and I'm not real sure if it'll go back to the way I thought of them before.

Maybe it was something I did. Should I have been rude instead of nice? Was being nice only fanning the flames? Sometimes I think that I'm just asking for people to walk all over me because I'm a timid person. I don't really know.

I know I sound like a stupid complaining customer but would you say that I'm justified, or just misunderstanding things?