But that offends me!
Seriously. Jesus! I had never read that thread before and had to stop after post 35. She shot down literally every idea!
Well, I eat hermits.
Vegetarianism is a perfectly cromulent lifestyle choice. Self-righteous vegetarians are a plague.
“So the movie doesn’t start till eight. maybe we could meet at McFadden’s for a drink first and…”
“Meet? MEET! You know I’m a vegetarian and you said Meet!? why don’t you realize [5000 word rant about factory farming deleted]”
When I first stumbled across The Pit, I was equally horrified and filled with the same sense of moral outrage. But now that I’ve been here a while, I’ve learned that this place does serve a certain positive function.
In this case, it’s useful in pointing out patterns of behavior that others find irritating. And sometimes those accusations are not worth acknowledging, and sometimes they are. And sometimes the Pittee changes said unsavory behavior, and sometimes the Pittee does not. Some unpleasant things have been voiced here but not everyone has accused Opal of being an unsufferable bitch. Some of us have just said, ‘‘Hey, I can see where the OP’s coming from. Ya wanna ratchet the sanctimony down a notch?’’ It doesn’t have to be a sinister thing.
Also, having been around here a couple years, I can vouch for the fact that ‘‘fuck you, you sanctimonious twat!’’ often means something different in the Pit than it would in real life. Hyperbole is not an uncommon means of communication and I’ve seen blistering exchanges that later end in an amiable truce or that are forgotten about by Friday. Some people do have long-standing grudges, but they tend to be in the minority. Hell, the most explosive thing I can recall involved ** Liberal **paying pseudotriton ruber ruber $500 to quit posting, an action which spawned about five separate Pit Threads, and even they were able to come to an understanding!
I don’t advocate needlessly attacking someone one way or another. I just think sometimes the Pit allows the opportunity for personal insight, and this may be one of those cases.
Well, maybe. I used to be in a forum with a person who had some empathy issues. When someone else in the forum had a health problem or was dealing with bad times or the like this person would ignore it or post something weird like “I’d sympathize with you but I’m not good at doing that so I won’t.” Normally, who cares. But this same person would also post these long sad diatribes about minor things in their life, then get pissy when nobody posted a “there, there” in response.
Was this person aware of what they were doing? I’m sure they were, though I don’t remember anybody specifically calling them out or “making an effort to change that behavior.” Did they try to change their behavior? Not in all the time I was there.
The problem is, with someone with empathy issues, it’s usually caused by one of two things:
- The person has severe problems with relating to people and doesn’t understand what he or she is doing.
- The person is a complete self-absorbed asshole.
For those of us who have run into #2 way too often, it’s easy to assume the problem is #2, especially when it’s such a long-standing pattern of behavior. A lot more people have called out Opal than have the person I mentioned above, and Opal hasn’t changed her ways. Is it that unusual for people to make an assumption like that?
Nevermind.
I don’t have a dog.
Not only that, but say someone did shoot a PM to this person. ‘‘Uh, I just wanted to bring up the fact that I think you’re being really rude in Thread X.’’ It’s all too easy to brush your lone critic as a ‘‘weirdo’’ or someone who overreacted. But when you have a general consensus of people pointing out, ‘‘No, that was clearly rude, Thread X Poster’’ it’s much more obvious that there may in fact be something there. Having it out in the open can serve the advantage of testing your beliefs, behaviors and experiences against those of mainstream society (well, mainstream Dope society at least.)
Must…not…type…
- Hi, Opal
Win.
I thought we all agreed that Opal’s cheese done slid off her cracker after her run-in with VCO3 and his thread about strippers and drug use.
Lotus Pod Pie anyone?
It’s been mentioned: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10437448&postcount=35
Au Contraire. Second at best, and a distant one at that.
It’s all those vitamins and protein she’s missing, it makes her cranky 
Except that the original nitpick that made “Hi, Opal” a board in-joke is that no list should ever have two items. Just putting “Hi, Opal” in at third place in a list isn’t enough.
</humor pedant>
I gotta admit, that’s a perfect response.
And no-one could possibly be offended by the words “lotus pod”.
Now we have our answer. 
It’s enough for me, but my needs are small.
(skipping to the end of the thread)
Diogenes, isn’t there a Republican acting idiotic someplace you can get all worked up over? This was stupid and unnecessary.
Or maybe it’s just time for you to take a board vacation. Psychotic oversensitivity is a symptom. It’s easy: ask Tubadiva to suspend your posting privileges temporarily and she’ll be happy to do it. No public shame, either. You just can’t post.
Link? I think you might be confusing her with Indygrrl