Is there any chance pants and norway could actually meet or something?

Honestly, I like the both of you.

The internet amplifies personalities and therefore personality differences - it's easy to caricature other people and easy to perceive something unmeant. Easy to go over the top because the person you're having a go at isn't a real person to you, just a user name on a message board. Easy to act as you never would in "real life" and forget that others may take what you say to heart. Easy not to care if you've actually upset someone - Norway and Pants have clearly upset each other on a genuine level (no I don't care who started it).

There are people on here who royally piss me off. I don't use the ignore list, but I simply don't respond to anything they post, ever (Selwyn springs to mind, there are others).

If we were all in a pub there would be groups of people we didn't really like the look of, and we'd leave them alone; the slightly lairy bloke leaning on the bar desperate to start a ranty conversation with anyone who'll listen; a bunch of other people I'd just smile nicely at and move on and ignore. No reason to get up in their s**t (to borrow the modern parlance) - the world would be a very dull place if everyone agreed with me or liked me and one of the benefits of age is that you get to realise that it really doesn't matter if most people like you or not.

I enjoy Norway's postings and he comes across as a good guy to me. I enjoy Pants' postings and he comes across as a good guy to me as well.

I accept that both are feeling genuinely hurt by the other, and wish there was something I could do to help them both climb down. Ideally the two should share a pint and move on. Can we make that happen?

Posted By: Old Man, Apr 9, 09:44:21