It’s a long standing tradition here to vent about people driving us nuts. But you know, we’ve probably driving someone else crazy too. It’s highly probable that they’re bitching about us right now somewhere! So, what did you do?
It would not surprise me a bit if this guy, Jay, is complaining about me somewhere in cyberspace. I’m still not sure what his deal is, because for the first two years we knew each other, I was content that my lack of non-platonic feelings for him were mutual. He wasn’t my type when I first met him, and he still isn’t. How come after two years he changed his mind about me? Why wasn’t he jealous of other guys I flirted with instead of him over the past two years previous? I seriously suspect that it’s not really me he’s interested in but a desire to find someone… Still, he’s not the sort of guy I expected to be deliberately getting too close, and saying suggestive things frequently. But you know, the sort of suggestive that might be considered innocent if you complained to TPTB about it. Sneaky.
Anyway, after that mini-rant, I had enough. I struggled at first, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but then I realized that he probably could pick up on the fact that he was making me uncomfortable, and if so didn’t care about my feelings. Clearly it was no longer possible to be friendly with him without it giving him the idea that I was okay with what he was doing/saying. So I stopped talking to him when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. It took a week or so, but he finally seemed to get it, and isn’t pestering me any more (and has finally stopped jealously inserting himself into my conversations with Brian too).
I suppose it’s entirely possible Jay’s complaining about being a Nice Guy, and how come a nice guy like him can’t capture my interest but a mere kid can (Jay’s a couple years older than me, and I’ve discovered within the last week that Brian is six years younger than I am; he’s known how old I am for a week longer ftr. I’m sort of surprised that didn’t kill my interest, but he’s no less cute or funny than before I knew), nevermind that my type is out-going and witty with dark hair and dark eyes, which “the kid” is and has, and Jay is gloomy introvert whose looks I’m indifferent to. I don’t know that I’d ever date Brian because we work together - though our employer’s official policy is not to care; it was covered during our sexual harassment training - and the age difference is probably at least as important to him as me, but we do have fun together.
So, I’ve probably inspired a Nice Guy rant. What did you do?
I got thrashed for wanting to be polite to theists on a secular forum and actually have real conversations with them instead of just beating them up and running them off. It was so bizarre because I wasn’t asking anyone else to be nice to anyone. I just wanted them to let me have a thread or 2 once in a while where no one demanded that theists prove the existence of god with every post because I wanted to better understand how they think. IMO the pile-ons were boring, repetitive and meanspirited. That did not go over well, to put it mildly. I just walked away and never looked back. I’ve also been called a lot of names because I really don’t like drama and have some not-so-nice sarcastic things to say about those that thrive on it. One of the things that attracted me to this forum was that theists and atheists are able to exist in the same place without flaming each other every 5 minutes and there isn’t a perpetual psychodrama going on.
Some trollop with a vastly overinflated sense of her own importance on another forum said I made her eye twitch. It just may be the most nonsensical complaint ever made about me anywhere. The trollophood is unrelated to the twitching; she is known on that forum for being a complete bitch to everyone but a select little group of her own pals. Oh, yes, the freedom of unmoderated boards.
SDMB is where I cut my teeth on internet message boarding. Some of the habits I have now are from here and my request for “cite?” is abhorred. I also attempt to inject humor (occassionally in picture form) which isn’t universally appreciated.
I forgot about that one. Normally I post on moderated boards where a cite is expected but I occasionally post on an unmoderated brawl forum about local issue. I’m not sure that they know what a cite it, never mind practicing basic logic. It’s not a lot of fun to point out logical fallacies to people who don’t even know what a strawman is. I’m pretty sure that more than a few of them don’t like me very much.
If some idiot wants to spew about me on another message board, why should I give them the satisfaction? Besides, backbiting says more about the biter than the bitten.
I was recently friended on Facebook by someone I went to school with from 4th-12th grades. I always liked him pretty well, even though our views on life are quite different (I’m a liberal atheist, he’s a conservative Mormon). I haven’t seen him since we graduated high school, so it was cool to see what he’s up to (married with a son!). But all he ever posts are links to articles from LDS publications and every few days he invites me to join a cause I strongly oppose. (Today it was some anti-abortion hysteria thing.)
I find myself grumbling about him on my LiveJournal from time to time. I know I could defriend him but…I really do like him! He’s a nice guy.
He’s probably complaining on some other message board that his old friend from school is a hippie communist. (Of course, my views back in school were probably even more left-wing than they are now. Just that back then, we didn’t communicate exclusively through links to political causes. We talked about homework and what we saw on TV last night and what a jerk our marine bio teacher was or whatever.)
I’ve been a member of a horror fiction board for about ten years. I don’t read much horror anymore but I like some of the posters, so I still read that board and occasionally post, but it’s always an Off Topic thread. I’m surprised nobody’s bitched me out.
I got into a huge discussion right before the election with a woman on my parenting board who claimed that Obama and his siblings are known terrorists. I asked for cites and she got all huffy, saying “I shouldn’t have to defend my beliefs.” My pointing out that she had stated it as fact not as a belief went unacknowledged. She eventually proceeded to out-stupid all of the stupidity I had heard about Obama anywhere, including stating that she had seen an interview with his siblings on 20/20 and that “they still live over in Islam.” :rolleyes:
So, yeah, I jumped all over her shit and some people got pissed at me. Why can’t everyone just believe what we want to believe? Why can’t we all get along?? You can believe whatever you want, but be prepared to back that shit up, you know?
Oh yeah, and one of the more religious posters on that board thought my language was unnecessary.
On the plus side, she stopped posting on that board.
