Scared or angry at people's replies

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Some forums and communities are generally nice, others are insane. Forums like this, or fan-forums are very localized as far as people that visit them. Because these people are there for a reason, the common conflicts are only natural, and fairly minor. We are all effectively neighbors, so we usually get along like neighbors.

I'm only mean to the meanies. (The meanies deserve it. Go take your crap somewhere else, meanies!)

For my reply to the OP:

Hell yes. It feels like a overload for me when I open my thread and see pages of abuse. Too much but yet it's not overwhelming when I see it happen to someone else. I can ignore some abuse and if it's very light but if there is lot of it, I hairflip (Babycenter term). I did that once over there. I often leave threads anyway when I post because the drama gets too much and boring even if it doesn't involve me. So it's not like I am posting and then running refusing to read any new replies. Last time I posted there, I got accused of being black and white because someone told me "It must be so nice to live in a world where everything is black and white." I'm starting to accept that accusation now even though it's not true. I started to think people will throw that black and white term around when they don't like what they read or what someone says so they will use it as an insult. So I ignore it now. Sometimes it's them being black and white, not me and that is what those women were there.


I am often afraid of posting threads because I don't know how they will be perceived. Back when I posted often online (not here), I was seen as very naive and innocent and I got crap for it. I was even called a fake too on occasions. Plus I act on impulse when I post something and then I feel stupid for it. Now I rarely do that. I try to be very careful what I say and make sure I do some little research first before asking and read more carefully so I don't look stupid. Plus I am always afraid of embarrassing myself.


I post less often at other places because they aren't very active or I don't know what to post. I also try and limit to how much I can post threads so I am not pissing people off. I always feel sorry for people who get low reputation on another forum I go to or when I see people attacking a person who seems so innocent. But ironically if they also annoy me, I don't feel as bad. I just think maybe they will post less often or learn to hide themselves better when they post just like I did. I can't help but feel it's their fault they are getting treated badly.


I try not to let people get to me if someone is mean to me or rude and I have gotten better at it over the years. I tell myself "it's the internet" and I get over it fast. It can be a few days to get over it but I get over it and I never speak to that person ever again no matter how friendly they are with me again. I just ignore them and pretend I don't see their responses. Sometimes I put their posts on ignore so I can't read them. I can't stand people who are unfriendly and then nice all of a sudden as if nothing ever happened between us. Maybe if they apologized that be a different story but no apology, things aren't good between us and they are still bad. I just assume they are still that bad person and their niceness is BS. Sometimes I can tell it's them with the issue and not me just by what they say about themselves or what they tell others so I know it's not me with the problem. But sometimes I don't want an apology if they are the sort of people to take things out of context and blow up at you so even if they apologized, I still wouldn't speak to them ever again so their apology be pointless. I just don't want to deal with that drama so I avoid it by never speaking to them again. Maybe if they grew up and changed in a good way, maybe I would give them another chance. If they were children at the time and now they are an adult, I give them another chance hoping they probably grew up.

Then there are other times when someone makes a mean comment to me and I ignore it and not take it seriously because of the kind of people they are.

I try to be positive, even if I am disagreeing with someone. I may slip every now and then - but I honestly do try.

When I post on WP or my own personal Facebook page - where I invite the input of others - I feel most hurt/sad when NO ONE replies at all

I feel as though I don't exist or I'm not important enough for a "thumbs up" or comment or reply.

I have found that sometimes I am not very good at explaining my thoughts and it comes out the wrong way. As a result I have gotten some nasty responses, but i have found that here people are more supportive than other online forums and websites. The weird thing is that I am more flustered by writing than peoples words in RL.

That's one nice thing about online forums. You can easily ignore others if you need to. You can always logoff too. I feel I have a lot of control when I am online that I don't have in the real world. If I don't like something I read, I move on to something else. I feel comfortable on WP because the posts are quite literate (enjoyable to read), people tend to be open-minded about each other's differences, and things are kept civil.

I post on several hobby forums.
When I solve somebody's problem I do get annoyed when they can't manage a simple "thankyou" reply.

To me it seems that forums generally (but not WP) are used by very rude people.

When I first joined WP I felt like that, but I didn't attract any flames for a long time, so I calmed down. Then there were a couple of weird incidents where a couple of people took exception to something I said. It made me nervous and I felt very tempted to kick some ass, but thinking about it I noticed that nobody was in the mood to concede anything, so not seeing any future in it, I just stopped arguing, after the first couple of rounds. I was angry because I knew what I said was being taken the wrong way, and by (wisely) withdrawing I felt as if I were letting myself down somehow. In one case I lost a bit of confidence in my own opinion on the subject, but I felt vindicated when some time later the main dissenter (on a different thread) reported having feelings that were practically identical to the ones I felt I had been attacked for having.

Mostly it's been very civilised though. But I'd feel like the OP if it wasn't. And I've seen some posts to other people that were nothing but pugnacious crap. People seem to end up fighting the wrong thing all the time, and picking on each other. As far as I know, I don't do that.

When discussing things on the internet, you should not take things so hard and instead adopt the mindset of "the dude"

Ugh, it took me until halfway through your post to realize you were saying replies and not reptiles. Well at least it started to make more sense after that.

I do tend to spend an inordinate amount of time editing my posts to ensure that they are exactly what I mean, but I think by doing that it makes me less anxious as to how people will react to it (if at all). When I know my post says exactly what I mean, it is their own issue to deal with if they dislike it; not a miscommunication on my part (although I'm not perfect and sometimes I still leave out something I'd meant to include, but it's not too common).

I think over the past several years I have grown increasingly capable of writing people off, perhaps even too far. I use to be very worried about everything I did and if others would have a problem with it, perhaps because I would occasionally slip up and say something without thinking that would make others very offended (hence overcompensating with my caution). Now I am approaching the other end: I tend to care very little when someone has an issue with something I've said. I will entertain their concerns if they display a sufficient level of intelligence and bring up interesting points, and will enter debate if it doesn't look like it will result in a total waste of my time, but if these aren't met I will avoid them and view their issues as having little to no significance. Debate rarely results in a change of mind for either party - I only tend to enter it if I feel it will be a useful test on the solidity of my own beliefs, not to convert theirs. I suppose in summary, people must prove to me that they are worth listening to before I will allow their words to have weight within me.

Does anyone think it's funny that one guy here has the Freakazoid as his profile picture? That's actually my go-to insult for weird people. How ironic.

Hey. Don't go dissin' Freakazoid. And I am no guy.