oops

sorry celiva all woman look the same to me on olo
...no ....that one dont wont work

er um ...it was the booze that done it
oops not this time

dammm ...i was just looking for something nice to say
yeah that will work

now .... look just say sorry and go

yeah ok that will work

sorry
gotta go now

wonder why i dont get invited to parties [lol]

Gibo that was a really funny post. I normally skip a lot of your work as I find it hard to read, but that was gold.

Bronwyn,

'Since when have you been so averse to a little 'bullying', Usual Suspect? You've dished out plenty of your own in the past, especially when you were the cuttingly witty 'Whitty'. I know, I've been on the receiving end of it several times.'

I don't believe I've ever personally abused you. I've been abrasive and outspoken and tactless, but rarely abusive and very rarely have I ever got personal.

'Well, if your resolution is to walk away from it AND to not dish it out in the first place, I say good luck to you.'

Well, the resolution is really to not bother at all with some posters, as anyone who by their own admission scrolls through hundreds of my posts to score points as Romany does obviously will only ever play the man not the topic.

'Hopefully, this latest resolution is a little longer lived than the time you announced to all you were exiting OLO. From memory that little dummy spit didn't last long at all.'
Well it wasn't a dummy spit until I fell into temptation and baiting and returned. It's a nice running joke everyone has at my expense, so fair enough.

'In fairness, you do seem to have transformed your posting style. Your once at times belligerent tone has mellowed somewhat.'
At least someone noticed.

'Happy New Year, Usual Suspect, and long may you stick around on OLO. Any future feminism related threads will be much the poorer if you don't!'

Right back at you. I doubt that is the case though. Incidently, I find it compelling that a male who is emotional or depressed gets 'poor diddums'. The original sook I had was with people playing Dr Phil and using the tiniest bit of personal information I had revealed for use in personal attacks against me. I find it interesting considering the heartwarming love up whenever you chicks get together on depression threads.

Usual Suspect

"I find it compelling that a male who is emotional or depressed gets 'poor diddums'."

I would never post a flippant response like 'poor diddums' if I truly sensed a poster was emotional or depressed. There was nothing in your post to indicate to me any genuine sensitivity. I just thought you were having a go, so I had a bit of a go too!

"The original sook I had was with people playing Dr Phil and using the tiniest bit of personal information I had revealed for use in personal attacks against me. I find it interesting considering the heartwarming love up whenever you chicks get together on depression threads."

Maybe I've missed something that happened between you and the others. I just thought you were carrying on with the usual argy-bargy, so if I've blundered in and got it wrong I'm sorry.

It's sometimes difficult to read where people are really coming from with their posts. All we have to go on are the words on the page at the time and a poster's history. If posters have played hardball in the past I guess there's a tendency to typecast them in that mould from then on in. And when they genuinely show another side of themselves it can be hard to pick up on.

As for the "heartwarming love up", I've read posts from both males and females at times that reveal a little of their personal struggles with depression and other issues. I've always sensed a general feeling of empathy and acceptance from the other posters, both male and female, on such threads.

I think you sometimes get too hung up on gender difference. Next time you're in that situation, forget the macho image, show your feminine side, open up and experience the warmth. I doubt very much you'd be subjected to personal attack on those types of threads.

Now, on a feminism related thread, that would be different! It would of course be gloves off as usual!

Bronwyn,

With the 'poor diddums', I just find it a particularly effective put-down for the female posters to use against the males. It plays on the stereotype that men shouldn't complain or get emotional and is sometimes an attempt to emasculate them. It's the equivalent of saying a woman has balls or is a bitch for standing up for herself. Many feminist topics have women talking about all the injustices to women, then when men talk about how the solutions to some of those problems have effects on men 'poor diddums' is trotted out.

Not how you've used it here obviously.

I've had it suggested before I be 'more feminine' and I think it's funny that if men do fly off the handle and become emotional they are told 'poor diddums', or don't be a sook. It's very contradictory.

Also, how often do you find women being told they should get in touch with their masculine side as if that's a positive thing? Rarely, because all traditionally masculine traits are considered undesirable. It's all these men who should be more like the nice virtuous women, and communicate in the way women do/want them to.

'All we have to go on are the words on the page at the time and a poster's history.'

This is the biggest problem with OLO. To assure people play the man and not the ball, nobody should be looking into the history of the poster. It's the words they have written about the topic at hand that should be addressed. That's why topics go nowhere. You get people like Fractelle entering a gender thread yelling that people are trying to silence her before anyone has even said anything. All the arguments and animosity from other threads are carried over and nobody is even reading the points people make about the current topic.

Usual Suspect

"I've had it suggested before I be 'more feminine' and I think it's funny that if men do fly off the handle and become emotional they are told 'poor diddums', or don't be a sook. It's very contradictory."

I guess it hinges very much on the way our posts are worded. After all, all we have on OLO are the words. We've got no facial expressions or body language to help us out and we don't know the poster in person.

When I mentioned a poster's history, I wasn't necessarily meaning the physical checking of their posting history. I was referring to all that's been said before and has gone into building up a perception of that poster. You can't take that away. It will always colour how you read the words in front of you.

Having said that, I do think it's possible for posters to change their style, to become less abrasive, more nuanced, more reflective etc. I guess it just takes some posters longer than others to pick up on the changes and some never will, either as a deliberate choice or because they're just not well tuned in to detecting subtle differences.

I think you've been too harsh on each of the posters you've referred to by name. Personally, I've found them to be some of the most open, intuitive and sensitive posters here.

Don't give up on any of us. For me, the best posters are those who can play hardball on the issues they are passionate about and yet can kick in with a thoughtful and empathetic response when it's called for. And for what it's worth I for one count you as being in amongst that lot!