I am sorry for the lengthy introduction, I will put it under the spoiler. Please read it only if you are interested in my thoughts about this problem
[spoiler]
I had a rather bad RP with one character in the past. I won't give its name full, lets just call her(him) Jo for shortness. The RP was bad, because once Jo has called my character rather explicitly "idiot", and after that my character, being a vengeful b***ch, and myself, knowing that my character was never made nor considers herself stupid, started the same tactics against Jo, however, instead of explicit attacks, trying to depict Jo as, softly speaking, not very bright. As I said, it was terrible RP.
Once I think I spoke for a second with this character OOC-ly and he looked... quite normal. I usually keep track of peoples I RP or want RP with, as many haven't yet joined common channels for roleplaying (emm... no, I don't stalk peoples, just like to know when interesting peoples log in), and the other day I noticed this character online too.
I invited him to the channel to greet him and ask where he was hiding, whether he will continue rp and how, and usual stuff, you know. Instead I got immediate bucket of dirt poured into the channel, and he left. I invited him into private conversation, but he just insulted me and closed it. I was dumbfounded. I was asking in the channel, what should I do, as I wanted to do something badly. Peoples were starting talking about my derailing, and stuff like that (well, it went places... and that character was well known derailer himself), so his outburst still remains mystery for me. The only thing I can suggest, is that he was annoyed at me because of that terrible IC interaction earlier. I was realizing, that should I start talking with him again, it would be incredibly hard not to descend to his level and keep myself from insults. As you can imagine, I was rather annoyed. I basically followed peoples advice and did nothing (except reporting him), and later forgot, thinking that character might be sold, or something like that.
However, recently I have noticed new post on IGS from this character. And now Im thinking, like in an old comedy movie with a stolen bride, the main antagonist said, that he had only two paths left: to the prosecutor, or to the marriage
And my two paths now are: either to try to talk with this character again, to find out which fly has bitten him, and if we could solve problems... or go full blown hostility on him (because Im simply not sure I could talk with him calmly anyway). And, as from my point of view, his hostility was caused by my IC hostility to him, simply deny him OOC interactions and treat him even OOC-ly IC-ly
(just like I do in local a lot).
Well, I can say, that I am quite used to the insults in general, especially if I know what they give them me for. But in this case... I am a bit itching to know what happened to him, and to explain to Jo, that IC shouldn't be mixed with OOC
Well, I totally don't want it to be harassment. I was thinking about popping Jo, but it turned out according to his KB, he was just... a highsec miner
Currently, I am at dilemma, again doing nothing, trying to weight variants. I don't know, can this character create content, or I will just waste time on him. How to check it? What you would do in my place?..
Thank you for reading this. Now I would like to ask you not to discuss characters here or the past actions, but rather future actions and what could or should be done in this scenario.
[/spoiler]
Okay, now imagine, you had a character, with whom you had very bad IC relations in the past. You notice this character is online, you invite this character to OOC channel to ask him, the character blows up with hatred to the channel, you contact the character with private, you say it is just OOC, and as a reply the character just showers you with explicit and dirty insults. What would be your action?