However when you have wealth and drive people will always be jealous and focus toxicity towards that individual
Neil is just great at dealing with and trolls harder back
Sadly, it's not that simple. I'm relatively new here (bought first machine in 2021). I volunteered this year to host for London & SE League. This was a huge deal for me as I'm new to the community, I hadn't put my pins on public display before and, also, I have very young children. I couldn't have my children in my house during the league event because my older son is autistic with significant sensory issues around noise/crowding, which meant I had to organise off-site childcare, and I had to do this weeks in advance.
Neil apparently has some issue with the way London & SE League is run, which I'm not party too. I've also got into trolling matches with him here on the forum (he sometimes comes across as a bully online and I don't like bullies).
Anyway, the London & SE League dates had been published for months when Neil, deliberately from what I gather, organised an event at Pinball Republic to clash with my league date. To avoid people being torn about what to attend, I decided to reorganise my event. First, I organised a date that clashed with Swavesey, so I chose to reorganise again to last weekend. This meant I had to rebook childcare twice (luckily free family childcare, but it inconvenienced my parents-in-law nonetheless). I had an argument with Neil on Facebook about this - he has subsequently deleted the entire thread, but the take-home message was he felt he could organise a better league than London & SE League, and plans to, and - thus - f**k my event.
When I rearranged my event to 12th August, I was messaged by a forum user to tell me that Neil had posted on his Facebook profile an event clashing with my new date. This was explicitly an attack on me as it made reference to autism, Greenwich (where I live), veganism (lord knows why, I'm not vegan) and a lack of beer (no one wanted soft drinks at my league event, anyway. I just had multiple requests for cups of tea)! Both my husband and I were baffled as, at that point, we'd never even spoken to Neil in person. I'd not done anything, apart from the Facebook comment and a bit of trolling on here, and it just felt weird and creepy. It was weeks after I'd commented on Facebook, I'd never given him a second thought, but it felt like I was living rent-free in his head. Anyway, within twenty-four hours or so, he'd deleted this event from Facebook - presumably, he'd never intended it to be a real event or someone had complained it was nasty
He has done a lot of great things for the community and is spending huge passion, time and effort, as well as his own money. The first time I spoke to him in person, I took the time to thank him for bringing over the low-reflective glass from the States, of which we now have several sheets. My husband started a conversation with him to try to clear the air. Neil did know who I was, without asking, so I guess he'd asked someone to point me out at some point (I mean, why? I'm nobody)
Thus, it's not jealously and toxicity - it's downright confusion on my part. And I say this as someone who was recently inconvenienced by him. Luckily, my parents-in-law were extremely understanding of why we were being messed about, but it obviously inconvenienced them too, and also my mum - who I also roped into providing childcare while we twice tried to get our machines in shape for different league dates. I simply don't understand why he needs to behave in what's a profoundly odd and hostile way to someone he's never spoken to due to a conflict about a league that's not doing him any harm, and which I wasn't involved with at the point where he apparently had an argument with the organisers
Colour me confused. But this isn't because he's successful. It's because he's... well, odd.
Sorry for the long post. I know someone is going to rock up to complain. I write long, I touch type and I'm not going to apologise for that. Just figured someone needs to hear from the newbie...