I’m definitely more confrontational here than in real life, especially in GD. Part of that is that to some extent I think I’m too much of a doormat in real life, so I use this place to test my debating wings. But part of it, I think, is that people say things to me here on the SDMB that they would never have the chutzpah to say to me in real life, and so they manage to raise my hackles much more than they would otherwise.
What’s your perception? Please elaborate as you feel appropriate.
I actually tend to be less confrontational here than in real life. I’m much more likely to speak up if I disagree with someone when I’m face-to-face. Here, I always think I’m going to be taken the wrong way (and I have been a few times).
IRL, I tend to know the people I’m talking to better than I do the people here. I can sort of read what the consequences of my words are going to be before I say them. Here, I’ve gotten totally off-the-wall reactions from people that I just didn’t expect. I don’t know if it’s because they can’t hear my tone, or if certain people just have a bizarre way of taking things, or a combination.
Also, I figure if I don’t say it, someone else will. I’ve been smacked down here enough (only a couple times) that I’m a little gunshy. I just sit here at my computer desk and cheer on the people who are writing the things that I’m thinking.
Less, for a lot of the same reasons C3 used. Here I know regardless of what my opinion is, smarter more eloquent folks will be along shortly to do a better job of writing what I think. I’m not afraid to argue or speak out, not intimidated, I simply enjoy reading and watching more than jumping in the fray.
IRL I work in a factory, simply being literate makes me one of the intelligentsia, I do a ton of ignorance slaying daily. Also come from a long line of vaguely fundamentalist uneducated boobs, so I be confrontating all over the gene pool.
I’m a self-conscious coward both on here and in real life and in both cases, it takes a lot to make me truly confrontational. I’d rather try to avoid and/or ignore those that annoy me than to beat my head against the wall in dealing with them.
I think I am slightly more confrontational than IRL, but an honest opinion would be better left to someone who knows me both places. There may be a few such worthies out there.
Now, just thinking off the top of my pointy head, I’d pay to see the responses to the OP’s question from certain others here, particularly Aldebaran, Brutus and askeptic.
Definitely way more confrontational here. Not that I’m not ever that way in real life, because I am, but there are times when you can’t say anything in the real world and when the same particular topic crops up on the boards, I can let out some of those built up frustrations.
Of course, sometimes I jump in before my brain has time to catch up, and I get smacked down - but that’s just the way it goes.
Aesirondescribed me perfectly. I do tend to express my opinion more around people I know and feel comfortable with but I don’t like confrontation anytime.
I’m generally less confrontational here, as stated by some of the other posters. In person, I’m less likely to have someone go off on me, but the consequences for them are worse there than here.
That’s me exactly. On this or any other message board, there’s no consequences if I accidentally lose my temper and say something more provocative than what I would say in real life. Furthermore, the same applies to my opponents in political debates in GD, so it creates an upward spiral. Or is that a downward spiral?
There’s more opportunity for confrontation, here-- I think in general, meatspace people tend to stick to uncontroversial topics with folks that they don’t know well, and avoid people that they are liable to clash with wherever possible.
I can think of a few lunchroom conversations with coworkers that pretty much mirrored GD trainwrecks, though. If people opened a dialogue based on something they observed me reading, I’d try to engage them as honestly as possible about it. Annual United Way campaigns pretty much forced a lot of people to offer political opinions. One girl used to witness on her breaks and I’d have friendly arguments with her. I used to have lively debates with a fella that subscribed to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, (I’m more or less socialist) and that went back and forth quite a bit.
Come to think of it, I organized for a union at a time we were going through some serious bloodletting. I guess that was pretty confrontational.
I think I’m about the same in the real world as I am here – I do my best to get along with folks, but that doesn’t extend so far as keeping quiet when faced with something that doesn’t seem right to me.
I guess here I might be a lot more likely to offhandedly calling someone an idiot or an asshole – though if I remember correctly, I’ve only let an “F you” slip twice so far. I think I’m getting a little bit crankier in recent months.
I’m way, way less confrontational here. Whenever I get to someone I want to ream, I scroll down and someone has already said it, only much more eloquently than I could have.
Roughly the same in both, though a lot of it depends on my mood. Short answer, I have no patience for fools, and cannot bear to watch gross ignorance (especially of the political kind) go uncorrected.