Your story is amazingly similar to my life.... I also mudded for several years, then began playing EQ, and found PM. Interesting parallel, but perhaps not too surprising.

The parallel ends however with your nemesis. During the 5 years or so that I mudded pretty constantly, I made many many friends, and no real enemies. Sure, there were people that perturbed me, but these were usually people whom everone hated because.... well, because they were mentally imbalanced. Mudding seems to attract some odd sorts of people, probably because of the anonymity you mentioned. Anyway, I actually did meet several of the people I mudded with. I drove to South Dakota once, and Texas another time (from Colorado), to party with my online friends. In the EQ world I also have no enemies, although my ignore list is far from empty.

Why do you think you're always butting heads with someone? The only reason I escape into the online community is to relax and forget about real life concerns for a while. If I got all worked up over some online personality conflict, that would pretty much ruin the fun for me, so I don't see the point. I may not be as outspoken as you, so I'm not attracting a "nemesis".... I dunno. My advice to you is to completely ignore anyone who takes away from your enjoyment of the online community. Let it go. Hehe - don't worry, be happy :)