I feel much better knowing I’m not the only one now! I’ve never really walked away from my computer pissed off or anything, but there have been times when my head is so full of things I want to say that I just have to leave so I don’t post anything that could really get me into trouble :D.
That’s the kind of post that will make any girl feel special :). Thank You arisu.
I disagree though. I spend so much time here, enjoyable time I might add, that to me it is real life. I mean, you are real people aern’t you? We talk about real life issues, we ask for opinions and help, and some of us actually meet IRL. So saying it’s not real life just doesn’t make sense. Well, to me anyway 
How do you know? That is, how do you know that the way any person represents himself in cyberspace is anything close to how they are in real life? It’s my opinion that the very reason people chose to debate, discuss, share and vent in cyberspace is because it is anonymous. For example, I can debate Christianity and the Bible with you because I don’t know you; I’m certainly not going to do that with my boyfriend’s Pentecostal parents. :eek:
I certainly don’t take anything anyone says here personally. I think that sometimes I come accross as bitchy in my posts - probably because IRL, when I’m writing something - a letter or whatnot, it’s bitchy - complaint about service, demand for restitution, etc. etc. It’s hard to shake that. People who have met me in person would probably concur that I’m not particularly bitchy at all.
I assume that other posters may have a similar thing going on - when they express themselves in written form they come off as much harsher than they mean to.
I suppose there are SOME posters that try to be mean, but as far as I’m concerned, they can just… TURN BLUE! 
Regardless of the anonymity level any particular person uses on the 'net, you’re still dealing with a person. I may know absolutely nothing about the ‘in person’ you, but I’m still dealing with a thinking human being when I respond to you.
In my book, this place is just another facet of real life. I’m interacting with real people here. Your apparent personality as evinced by your activity here may be completely different from what you are like if we were in the same room. You are still a real living breathing human-type organism, with feelings and emotions.
Well, I don’t think I’m all that different here than I am in real life, so maybe that’s why I think most people are that way too. You’re right though, I’m sure there are people who are just here to “be someone else” because they can’t speak up or say the things they do here IRL.
I always say to myself “What if someone in Brazil were saying, this very second, ‘Arnold Winkelried is an imbecile!’ Why would I care?” I try to apply that philosophy to the SDMB.
It just struck me that; articulating reasons why people don’t feel anything particularly emotional, will by default insult the people who are still acutely emotional. The thread by default, is therefor not particularly discussible axiomically - only as a re-enforcing ‘matter of opinion’. As a person who sees myself in everything that can be said; painfully so, I tend to become frustrated with those who lack the sincerity to absorb that which can totally decimate them. In the end, you start to realize that you’re still there, and inevitably wiser for the struggle through your own projections and denial systems.
-Justhink
This is gonna sound harsh and I don’t mean it to, but getting upset would mean that I care about other peoples’ opinions about me. Yeah, there are people on here that I like, but if they call me a poopoohead or whatever it’s not going to ruin my day. Likewise I’m not going to be moved much if someone on here says something good about me, either. I. Just. Don’t. Care.
I have a limited amount of energy and I have to save it for important stuff, ya know?
I make a lot more sense if you pretend I’m a cardboard cut-out.
I try not to get pissed off about things, but it happens. Only once that I can think of, but yeah.
As a personal preference; I would jump at the opportunity to explore the aspects of myself that become a bit unsettled. If I ever found myself of the mind:
“I had one guy that bummed me out, so out of curiosity I did a search of all his posts. It turns out that he was just a self righteous asshole.”
“Like NurseCarmen, I too have searched an offensive poster’s submissions to try to understand where that person is coming from. Sometimes the offender writes like a child or just seems like a very angry person. I try to consider the source.”
…I would consider myself hopelessly lost in a tangled web of denial and projection. I actually try as a human being to notice when I become like this and eradicate it. I find that many tend to get the judgement and STOP, at which point, further observation of the self STOPS. Emotional pain is not like physical pain; in that you can just wait it out… emotional pain effects the entire structure of thought patterns when pushed back. A person then becomes non-transparent to themselves and in many ways a drop of water to another persons’ ocean. That old wisdom; revived in the ‘new-age’ of moving through it, seems very apt for this situation IMO.
-Justhink
I’m with Mullinator. I deal with such a large number of people on such a regular basis that I tend to ignore insults as well as compliments. So nothing here really affects me, it’s just a way to pass time and something else to read.
I get a little heated when I encounter an America-bashing thread, but I’m with World Eater on this one.
I’m gonna go slightly against the grain here because a lot of the people I interact with on the boards I’ve either met at least once in person or have talked to off the boards (and as such have gotten a feel for the person they are apart from the SDMB).
I do take some stuff seriously. Obviously not everything (in fact, almost nothing:)) in flirt threads, but otherwise, yeah. When people I know in person say things on the board that I disagree with, I don’t just say to myself “Bah, that’s just an internet person with no personality saying that, it doesn’t mean anything” because a good bit of the time I do know that person offline. And I don’t think it would be true to myself to dismiss them just because we disagree.
However, the flip-side is that if I don’t know you very well, or I don’t get the sense that you know me very well, then something bad you say about me (and, actually, something good you say about me) isn’t going to do very much to ruin my day, so to speak. But then that’s sort of like how, for example, I value, for example, Geobabe’s opinion of various things (about me and not) because I’ve known her for a good bit of time. Some random person I met in a bar or in a class or whatnot? I don’t know 'em from Adam, and they don’t know me at all either. So if they care to make some commentary on something about me … sorry, but it’s not going to mean as much to me as it would if it were someone who knew me.
So to sum up: yeah, some things I do take personally on the board when I know the person. And of course if I don’t know you, I’m not as liable to be as affected either way by what you have to say. But IME that’s more of how I am with my life than how I am solely online, pet peeves and personal issues aside.