I actually don't like speaking about people when they aren't around to discuss an issue. But, in the case of Cal I will because it's not bitching about him.
In my opinion, for what it's worth, Cal really wasn't the same person he was 12 months ago when he introduced me to this site. I do believe his mental health has gone downhill in some ways over the past year, for whatever reasons, whether it was abusing alcohol or lonliness or whatever. And of course, I could be wrong, but that was just the feeling I got and on a personal level, I do feel sad that things went the way that they did. Towards the end I actually avoided interacting with him, after a few discussions where I felt he was drowning in his own murk and didn't really care about anything anymore.
Re the topic of cliques, yes people gravitate to, and interact with, people whose ideas and personalities they can identify with. There have been incidents where I think people have agreed with others for the sake of it and attacked others without really trying to understand and I know it happened to me a few times earlier on. In saying that, I have spent more time away from the site if I felt stressed out about something....and Cal's circular arguments not only exhausted me, I actually felt if I agreed with someone on a topic, he'd start attacking and it would just kill a valid discussion, so I wouldn't even have the desire to post sometimes. In actual fact, he was trying to create the very thing he accused everyone else of.
I choose not to really particpate in discussions like this anymore because I come to just enjoy the site, not kill it by overexamination of it.
It's the same reason I don't like long discussions after good sex.
(Sorry, had to use that analagy, since I've been accused of being purely only interested in those whom I can flirt with or post in threads so I can talk about sex
Glod bless Cal )