[ForFuckSake]

Well this was an interesting read... I wanted to go down nice and quietly, but since undertoad was so nice as to shine the spotlight...

Originally Posted by glatt

This finally all came to a head over in the gender equality thread when he said some stupid shit and got called on it by everyone. I think he was genuinely surprised that so many people told him he was wrong. It bruised his ego and so he left.

I would have loved it if someone would have told me I was wrong, at least then it would be interesting, and like most of those things, I usually try to get proven wrong, hell I am wrong plenty of times, I'd have to be at least half the times considering how often I change my mind on things. But instead people didn't engage what I said at all, they just thought the way I expressed my point was revolting. What is the counter argument for "ew"?

Frankly, I get it, and people have a right to think that, but learning people by checking for what they demonstrate - seen how they react to things - is such a cornerstone of my way of thinking that there is nothing for me to do with it. Plenty of people think blood flow is gross, doesn't mean I am going to try to get rid of mine.

Originally Posted by Dude111

Yes tell me about it!!

Im on another VBB site where you wouldnt believe how many ppl want thier accounts and activity deleted... WHY??

Funny that you should ask - probably rhetorical but I'll answer anyway - because I asked the same thing in the past... And now I know at least some of the possible reasons, since it's the first place I ever felt the need for it.

You assume that people want their stuff deleted only because it can impact them in real life and you assume people who know them in real life don't know or can't find out who they are. Both of your assumptions are wrong. Regarding the later, that's certainly not true for me - the partition between real life and online life is a very fragile one. Regarding the first - exhibit A - this post. You see how I am currently answering you which is a pretty obvious failure at leaving? This is part of it. Subjectively when people leave a place there is often a sense that they leave part of themselves there, and under the wrong circumstances - much of the same circumstances that would might make someone want to leave in the first place - parts that you'd feel like they'd need defending, which would make it harder to leave and cut loose. The problem is when you don't feel like there is any reason to stay other then to come back to defending it.
This is a pretty common thing, in commercial websites it's often employed consciously to keep people coming back and to keep the content rolling for everyone else. Here I am guessing it is employed because it's easier then otherwise, and unsurprisingly the results are quite a few people who come here and have no stake in this place other then the long tail of leftover conflicts.

Originally Posted by lumberjim

you're not a very nice guy, John. This kind of thing always seems to happen regardless of what name you use. You lash out with minimal provocation. There's a certain underlying bitterness there that you can't help but to let slip. Personally, I'm fucking done with it. Go screw.

Interesting that you should say that about him - I still have no idea what did I do to provoke yours in the first place.

Originally Posted by sexobon

Your future husband.

Also the only person here who didn't completely ignore every single thing you say. You do realize that right? Do you really not notice how nobody ever responds to anything you say? I have seen twice people reacting to you at all, and even that was barely so. Are you really happy going back to getting ignored by everyone so completely and nobody ever paying attention to anything you have to say? You might like to justify the problems I had here with others to various degrees, but the problems I have here sometimes - enough to annoy me - are the ones that are completely indistinguishable from how everyone here treats you all the time. At least for me these are still problems, you've become so used to people here treating you like shit that you think this is what air smells like.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Like all of us, he's acquired some bumps and bruises along the way, but I got they impression he felt he'd learned so much hanging around psychology forums, he felt superior in his qualification to be the shepherd, leading us where he could show his chops. But he ran into the madding, for shepherds, Cellar thread drift. Like he's got his points and rebuttals all stacked like snowballs, and the kids go to another yard.

But since I'm no psychologist, or shepherd, I'm guessing at his motivation, and may be way off base. For the same reasons, I enjoy the neat gems the thread drifts unexpectedly dig up sometimes.

In summation... damifino.

Not really. I didn't want conversations to go a certain way, I just wanted them to, well... Go. anywhere at all. The reality is that I couldn't get here conversations rolling, at least not when it's a conversation about something. I am not blaming anyone on that - comes down to it, it doesn't matter why - the simple reality was that I couldn't get most conversations rolling at all, not within my own topics and not in existing one.

Don't get me wrong, you guys engage plenty when its a conversation about someone - whether it's personal life or online drama like here right now - but not when it's about something. Mostly then there's no conversation rolling at all, unless it's something you are already familiar with in which case it becomes a list of disconnected opinions that rarely respond to each other with very little dialogue, with the one exception of politics. But politics is, well... Politics. Established conversations we've all heard a hundred times where everyone knows everyone else's arguments.

TBH I don't know why, but I do know that getting conversations going used to come very easily for me in every other single place I've been. DanaC can vouch for that if she''s willing - at least in regards to where she met me - threads with the most esoteric and weird topics still ended up with pages on pages of ongoing debates with plenty of people joining in. This is something I used to be able to take for granted. But here.... Nothing, not even drifting, no motion at all. I try to pass the ball and nobody picks it up.... Hell, in the last conversation it felt like it was vomited on instead.

Which is fine. There is nothing wrong about a group of people who mainly just talk and engage with each other about their lives, and I've done some of that here as well, but for that to work you need to feel like you have some connections to each other, and bonding for me usually happens when I feel like I am thinking together with someone... Mind-meld, if you know what I mean.
Normally it just kind of happens, I have at least one person I still talk too from every single place I was part of, but the conflict with dana in particular made me realize... This is the first community I've taken part of that I felt if I left there would be nobody I would keep in contact with, or anyone that would want too for that matter - there just wasn't any click with anyone.

So if it's not for the conversations and not for the people, what is there left come here for? Just to continue defending unfinished arguments and whatever pieces of yourself you leave around?

Well... Apparently, I am doing it right now. But the point about it being pointless still stands.