Yesterday it occurred to me that Dave Van has replaced Heinovision Alan as the official pariah of the diary world. Both have progressively alienated numerous prominent members of the diary community with their bizarrely questionable behavior. For those of you not in the loop, a couple of years ago, Alan horrified many of us by writing of his multiple marital infidelities and his feelings of indifference towards his infant son. He also pissed people off by writing insulting remarks about other diarists (including a statement in his diary that he thought my writing was "prosaic" and didn't understand why Nigel would go out with me) and most recently by blabbing on diary-l the formerly closely guarded secret of Open Pages founder Ophelia Z's true identity.

Dave has similarly inspired resentment in many journalers through a series of incidents. He, too, publicly revealed a diarist's secret: the gender of Rob Rummel-Hudson's unborn child. This transgression is particularly grave considering the fact that Rob's wife has chosen to wait until she gives birth to learn her child's gender, and could ostensibly have accidentally happened upon Dave's page. Dave then got himself in more hot water in this stalkerly e-mailed attempt to apologize to Rob.

The other major Dave debacle of the past week is the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between Dave and Beth of xeney.com. I can't actually remember how this battle started, but the latest round involved Dave threatening to "out" Beth as author of The Lowdown (which turned out not to be much of a threat, since she actually isn't the author).

Both Dave and Alan insist that deep down, they're really good guys. Alan's excuse for his past behavior was that he was "on drugs." Dave's defense seems to be that he has absolutely no sense of judgement or propriety, and honestly had no idea that his actions would be so poorly received.

And you know, unlike most people, I actually believe Dave. Dave's propensity for bad judgement has already been well established.

So maybe a year from now, Dave will end up a tattooed and pierced hipster living in Seattle. Can't you just picture it?