I don’t know that I’m “emotional”, but I do find myself going overboard prefacing my comments with things like"I don’t mean to offend you" or “please don’t misinterpret this”. This is largely due to some of the overreaction that I see going on around here. Sometime it feels like walking on eggshells. I almost never have to explain myself this way IRL, because as others have already said; it’s infinitely easier to make one’s intentions known in face to face conversation.
I’ve only recently come back to these boards after a four-year hiatus. I done been runned off back then for suggesting that society was too casual about sex. I wasn’t kicked out or anything, but I’ve learned from my experiences here and elsewhere that any suggestion that pre-marital, or extra-marital, sex is in any way immoral, or that it contributes to the spread of STDs will get you a swift lynching. The same goes for if you suggest that drinking/drug use is lame or boring. Those are the two topics about which people become especially militant. Now I have to regularly point out that I come from another planet where our perspectives are vastly different from these strange Earth customs.
Yes. Very.
Sometimes, when I get into a discussion about a pet peeve topic, or if I’m in a bad mood about something else. Usually, I’m not the target of people’s attacks, but I put myself into the place of the person being attacked and get pissy about it. I’m not sure if it comes through in my posts, and lots of times I don’t even post, just get mad about what I’m reading.
No, it’s not healthy.
I’m pretty good at avoiding ‘hot button’ topics. Generally, that is.
What I’m not so good at is being able to suffer arrogant arseholes gladly, because I can find myself reading one of their posts after clicking on the most innocuous of thread titles. Even then, I respond less than before. I’m good enough at this form of self-control that I don’t have a name as one of the aggressive GD or Pit people, but not so good at it that I can say I never succumb to the temptation. Generally, I can handle political or idiologically different viewpoints, even if it’s an efffort to do so sometimes, but when somebody sweeps in and just thinks their shit doesn’t stink, I will be more likely to go a round with them.