The Mongrels

For those who have read Bryce Courteney’s novel, Tommo & Hawk, you will be familiar with the mongrels of which I speak. The mongrels are what Tommo refers to as the evil people of this world. Throughout the book he is regularly reminding his twin brother Hawk and the reader that the mongrels will always come back to take down the good people of this world. Thommo’s mongrels are the kind of people who take advantage of others for their own gain. They come in many shapes and sizes. From the wild barbarian that kidnapped and raped him as a child, to the civilised and respected man about town, who organised events in sports and gambling. In Courteney’s story these people are fictional but a very real representation of some people in the real world. We all encounter the mongrels at some point or another. Sometimes they are easy to spot in the form of a rough bikie gang or a big business making money off other people’s addictions or misfortunes. Other times they are more conspicuous. Pickpockets, con artists and master manipulators come to mind in this degree. This is a story about the mongrels who came to get me. The unique thing about these mongrels is that I still, to this day, do not know what it is they sought to gain from my sadness and demise.

I think back to when I first met the mongrels in Vietnam. Cocky, rude and obnoxious yet easily justified by assuming it was the biproduct of an excitement to explore a new country with a new group of people waiting to become a family. Over the space of my time with the mongrels I was unaware of what they could and would become. They were difficult to deal with at times but hid behind the excuse of mental health issues to justify some of their actions. As a male in a world dominated by political correctness based around an equality that has created a new form of radical feminism, turned sexism against men, I found myself in difficult positions. I witnessed a mongrel abuse a male verbally and almost physically, 30 minutes later she was unwantedly sucking on the fingers of a man she had just met to the point where she had to be told to stop, not just by him but by me as well. To cap off a night of unusual behaviour she was found running around outside demanding men come and have a threesome with her. I was later informed that one of the boys in the group had woken up to her forcing herself onto him. I made a mistake here. I gave into the world of gender inequality and told her that her behaviour was unacceptable and needed to stop. When I think back, I should have filed an official report immediately to rid the group of this predator. If the genders were reversed, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Her response to her actions was that she struggles with social anxiety and was drunk. Drunkenness should never be an excuse for poor behaviour. These were the first signs of this underlying evil. It only took two days for her to show that she was happy to share the abuse across both sexes. I was on the receiving end myself, when she verbally abused me for not being able to help her move rooms while asleep at 3am. I later found out she had spent the evening attacking 3 of her female friends for not returning home early in the night when she had. I noted this behaviour and spoke to her once more. I fell victim to the mental disorder card once again as I tried to help her get on top of it with advice I had received when I struggled with my own deteriorating mental health years prior. The last straw came as she was the instigator of a hotel hallway screaming match with a girl she had, as I later found out, been bullying with terms such as “whore” and “slut” throughout the trip. I’d done everything I could to help this girl get through the trip and feel comfortable and even at one point supported her claim to remain on the trip when questioned about a possible removal. I think back to this mongrel and think how silly I was to think that this person had any possible agenda away from causing drama. It’s clear that she maintains a sick perversion toward other people’s misery. However, being the person that I am, having the past battles with mental health myself, I sympathised with how difficult it would be. I had no idea that this was a weakness in my personality that cracked the door open for the mongrels to lay their conniving, sadistic and all out malicious plans.

Mongrel's trap being set

Having received official emails of complaint about my treatment of her as a person with mental illness I was baffled to think what more I could’ve done to try and help her. I was hurt that I was so unappreciated having spent many hours helping, defending and looking after her. My surprise will be understood then, when I received a private message from this person thanking me for all my hard work. She claimed to have got help and was feeling a lot clearer and realised how much I had done to help her and how much trouble she had caused. This was received just days after she had sent the official email and posted multiple slanderous stories on her social media about myself and the company I worked for. I was genuinely happy that she had sought treatment and was on the road to recovery regardless of all the issues she had caused. I put it down to that illness she hid behind so often. I’d forgiven her to a point that catching up while I was in town didn’t sound like a bad idea. I seemed to be talking to a different person than the one I met in Vietnam. This one was calm, driven and conversational. After meeting this different version, one with a new lease on life, I didn’t object to getting dinner and getting to know each other better. The time we spent together was brief but enjoyable, I started to see this girl as a friend and there were conversations about what is next. I find it hard to have a relationship because I wouldn’t see my potential partner for many months at a time. This isn’t something I’m prepared to put them through nor myself. So, while we had time together, we spent it together. It was brief, it was comfortable, it was simple. The defining moment that sealed my fate was a pure mistake. I trusted the girl. I didn’t think to see which one of my social media accounts I was messaging her from. We had been engaging in an intimate conversation. I thought i was on my personal account during this time, however, I was actually on my work account. This broke my social media contract as everything I was saying is said to be as a representative from work. I, at no point, realised I’d made this mistake. Nor did I really think it would matter considering how things were going. Afterall, we had gone on a few dates. I trusted this person.

Things returned to what I first knew from the mongrel after I went on the road again. I began getting abusive messages followed by lengthy apologies, followed by more abuse. Stories of other guys she was dating while seeing me, insults about me as a person and extremely hurtful language was thrown at me like confetti on newlyweds. It got to a point where I became desensitized to both the abuse and the apology and felt it was best to just finish what was now just a friendship. As a creature of habit, she began posting slanderous and insulting social media posts about me again. Confused by this, as I had not worked for quite some time, I simply ignored it. I received picture messages of screenshots of her posts and conversations with her friends. Many of these were also public and held the sole purpose of destroying me and my reputation. They encouraged each other’s behaviour in a barbaric onslaught of what can only be described as schoolyard bullying that rivals anything I’ve ever heard of or experienced. My patience was pushed beyond its tether when I received a lengthy essay of abuse about how someone who had disliked her in the beginning had told her they would’ve been best friends with her if it wasn’t for me. I don’t quite understand how that is possible as I don’t influence anyone to do, think, say, or believe anything. I’m no cult figure making rules on who is friends with who or who can’t talk to who. I’m no trend setting Instagram influencer. To tweak the words of Harry Potter at the age of 11, “I’m just Aaron”. It was so ridiculous, I thought it was a joke at first. But the abuse continued, and I ended up blocking her from my social media accounts. More slander continued and I attempted to keep my mouth shut. I really didn’t have the time for such teenage, attention seeking behaviour as her and her friends continued to tarnish my reputation to anyone who takes the time to care what they post on Instagram. It was a game to them. These actions all seemed low and unjustified to me, but I was about to get one more surprise as to how many shovels these girls have for the sake of their own pleasure. I learnt that they will dig as low as they can to satisfy their malicious perversions. Verbal abuse is bad, physical abuse is bad, Slander is bad, but to resort to blackmail really just proved that it was all a power trip allowed to birth by the corporate world’s mantra of “the customer is always right” and social medias encouragement to help people get 5 minutes of fame at other people’s expenses. I received a message from an account of hers that I didn’t know existed. Maybe it was a new one she made to message me, maybe it was hidden from me the whole time, I don’t know. In the message was a screenshot of her inbox with the top message saying a message had been sent to a company I work for. It was followed by a list of demands to leave her life, better myself and not prey on people. This truly made no sense to me as I had previously blocked her, and she had used this new account to contact me. As for bettering myself, I wasn’t sure what it was she wanted me to do as I believe the only thing I had done wrong was be a scapegoat for someone who didn’t treat her well when she met her and had not decided to befriend her. Instead of apologising this person must’ve just thought it was easier to blame me. The bit about preying on people was the hardest to understand of the lot as I have not, nor will I ever “prey” on someone. I’m a single guy who goes on a date every month or so when he finishes work. I don’t believe going on a date is being a predator. It was all very heavy, emotive language she was throwing at me in this form of black mail. She stated that if I obeyed her requests she would withdraw her message. I didn’t know what to do as I had never had someone blackmail me before, let alone blackmail me for the purpose of losing my job. The job I spent years of sacrifice away from my friends and family gaining the experience I needed to get in order to apply for it. The job that has become my life. The job that I was so in love with that I missed countless Christmases, birthdays, weddings and funerals for. My job was my life. The mongrels knew this, so they came for it.

Shortly after the blackmail message I received a phone call from my office. They made me aware that an official complaint had been made about something I had sent. Weeks later I finished work and was given the chance to see this scathing report. Ironically, the person who had used me as a scapegoat was none other than the person who had requested that I get the mongrel off the tour days before it concluded. When I allowed the mongrel to remain, she requested that I ensure they stayed away from each other. Having questioned my own memory I asked 3 other people who were involved in these situations who confirmed that my memory hadn’t faulted. This person and another friend also claimed that I had been instigating bullying of the mongrel to a large portion of the group during dinner after the tour had finished. This was again proven to be a lie when another person could confirm the exact topic we had been discussing during this time, separate from the group discussions of the mongrel. Funnily enough, the two girls plotting with the mongrel to destroy my livelihood were both present at that event and didn’t say a word to defend her nor raise any issue to me while I was conversing about something else. They would know what the group were saying better than I due to them paying attention to that group conversation. These accusations are the tip of the iceberg in a web of lies that seems to have taken three months for them to spin. Perhaps they fuel each other’s imaginations or maybe they struggle with the reality of their actions. Regardless, they made my life their business when they began to plot and discuss me in their spare time. Spare time of which they must have plenty, now filled with attempts to ruin someone’s life and career. Someone who had nothing to do with them.

The Mongrel hunting me

Evidence of the mongrels lies in attempts to slander my reputation (I’m Blue)

Having been dating the girl at the time, I had expected anything I had sent to be relevant to what we were at the time. The moment the mongrel realised I was messaging from my work account while on holidays she saw her opportunity to use my trust against me. It was then that she pounced. She rallied her pride of lionesses and began stalking their prey. My career was their dinner. In a four-page attempt to feast on the flesh of my work-life I was impressed by the amount of fictitious venom one can spit into one piece. Multiple times the mongrel claimed I had used vulgar terminology to describe a close friend of mine. The twist here, is that it was her who had used that terminology to describe my friend. Attempts to claim that I was aggressive and forceful with her to send illicit material via message was debunked immediately when I could produce conversations where she sent videos of herself unrequested while demanding I return the favour. She claimed that I had not done my duty to look after another person on trip who had been spiked on a night out and insinuated that I had taken advantage of that girl. However, I remain friends with that girl. She is a paramedic and still says she was not drugged but had simply drank too much. Her appreciation is still extended to me when the topic arises for the care I showed to her in the lobby while I waited for someone else to take her to her bed. An act I did to prevent any possibility of rumour such as this. Regardless of the evidence of slander and defamation that passes the mongrel’s canines my career still sat standing like a deer in the headlights. Context helps the moral mind, but we don’t live in a moral world. Unfortunately, what I did broke my contract in a plain and simple, black and white, corporate world. The corporate world ignored any morals that context created and instead cocked it’s weapon firing a finishing blow that not only ended the metaphorical life of the deer and my career but also succumbing to the mongrels wishes based on 10% truth. When all is said and done, I can’t help but feel like a victim of a sadistic plot by the mongrels to bring me down for the sake of their own twisted pleasures.

My Career

The mongrels will always linger around the good people of this world. Identifying them will never be easy but each mistake is a learning curve. My only defence to combat this malice is to continue with my life without reaction. I feel that to engage in a war of tit for tat would achieve nothing for anyone. To me it is better to look past such behaviour and move on knowing that I get my happiness and self-value from my own creation of positivity toward life and others. Unfortunately for the mongrels, they will never know pure happiness. Pure happiness isn’t created by negativity and the demise of others.

“There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity. I suggest you think about what it is that YOU want from YOUR life, and why.” – Iroh of the White Lotus