--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote: > > No complaints about your summation and it was instructive > to see another opinion on something I was so inside of. > I might ad that during the craziest period Bob was trying > to play both Robin and me, and it was Robin who got the > worst of that.
A good point. I think Robin may have gotten the idea that I (we?) had some kind of photo of him in drag from Bob. He seemed to delight in starting or prolonging fights. . . . > What I appreciated from you POV was your catching that at > a certain point the long time it took to decipher and respond > to Robin's posts became a burden. My other responsibilities > had changed over the months of our correspondence, so I started > picking a few things to comment on and not putting as much > time in. I think you put your finger on when the wheels came > off. I couldn't sustain it. He needed to also back off instead > of doubling down to maintain it. That's just how I saw it at the time. . . . > I think he was looking for a substitute for real friendships > here with the expectations we have for people in our offline > lives and due to the nature of the place that seems unlikely. Bingo. Excellent insight. In retrospect, similar to what happened to Ravi, I think some of their respective burnouts can be attributed to just being Internet newbs. I really never got the impression that either of them had participated in online forums before. So they may have indeed come here thinking that they could form relationships the same way they might out in real life. Bzzzzzt. In my experience it rarely works that way on the Internet. Different medium, different way of communicating. Some people perceive the inherent distance involved in two sets of dots in phosphor talking to each other in cyberspace, and some do not. > You just can't stay in rapport with everyone and still use > the place to express unfettered opinions about sensitive > topics. And for me, that is its deeper value. I need a place > to write what I am trying to figure out, not a place to find > friends. Amen. > I have found people I consider friends along the way, but > that is also because they don't try to interfere with my > main mission here, they egg me one. Sometime in a positive > way, you, sometimes in a negative way, Judy. > > Anyway, thanks for the invitation for my two cents. And thanks for the considerably larger sum than that in reply.
