Opinions mean nothing until someone's feelings get hurt

I wonder if social networks are killing social graces?

Abso-freakin'-lutely!

I think since the 'net first came to be (in a widely utilized manner, anyway) people have always relied on the relatively anonymous nature to act in ways that they wouldn't normally. When there's no real accountability for one's actions, why restrain? Seems to be the mantra of some anyway...

There's actually a whole field of study regarding anonymity and deindividuation, and the impact on modified responsibility.

If you can't relate to that, I'm guessing you're in the minority... sad but true, in my opinion.

The studies I was mentioning fairly repeatedly find the same thing: for any group of people as a whole, the inability to identify someone, and a shifted responsibility equates to people violating societal norms.

But in everyday banter it can't lead anywhere good.

I'm guessing that said people aren't terribly interested in leading conversation "anywhere good."

how could one really feel good about contributing something that is not even remotely close to what they really think?

Sad as it is, I think it comes down to the petty satisfaction of oneupmanship, ultimately...

people need to check themselves!

Couldn't agree more... lol.

K-joy -- on your 2.3 -- That pretty much sums it up for me, too, in your first paragraph. I say what seems right at the time, it's honest and I don't pretend to be someone I'm not. And I don't go out of my way to hurt anyone with my remarks, either. If it ever appears that way, then it is unintentional. If I am feeling a little down, I try not to pass it on, so avoid posting. If I sense another poster is down, then using caution might be a good idea because we might inadvertently make things worse for them by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Generally, if a remark comes from someone that I don't know that well online, then you know it doesn't mean much, right? If it comes from someone you know and respect, then we would probably ask for clarification, no?

wow, 20 years is a long time!

LOL - ..." I really didn't want any clarification..he was pretty clear." --- Me too when it is someone I don't care about - but if I do care, I always ask to make sure!! I would just hate getting my feelings hurt when it wasn't intended - hahaha.

K-joy,

I absolutely love your sense of humor and the whimsical way you express yourself. Isn't it odd that one can be zipping along, enjoying oneself immensely, then someone comes out of left-field with a comment and just screws up our entire feel-good?

I agree that one-on-one verbal communication is in peril. For crying out loud, humans now are seeking life partners via one machine talking to another, with no clue what the other person really is like! Real life doesn't have a delete button that let's me carefully edit what I say so I "present" in the best possible way. I have a 100% malfunctioning "blurt-button" in real life.

As for the person analyzing you on that site; someone once told me that people interpret what they're reading based on what their personal mind-set is. When we read, we don't have facial expressions, body language, voice/tone inflections to accurately gauge what the person is conveying. So, it sounds like this person is reading and ingesting your comments based on his mind-set and it has nothing to do with yours whatever.

I repeat.....I find you funny and with a pretty darned positive outlook. And, yes, you have full permission to feel less than perky on occasion. If anyone can do the less than perky thing with style and panache, it's definitely you ;-D

I never thought I read as depressed in text...? ~totally strange to me.

Probably because you don't ;-D

I think it's easy to fall into is one where the writer tries to actually assume responsibility for the reader's perceptions/reactions. While noble, it isn't possible,

Darn it, sir! You have such a perfect way of condensing issues down to the truth.

Maybe over the weekend I just needed something else to think about it and dwelled on this one negative statement? Self examination is never in vain.

Agreed....self-examination is educational and growth-producing. But, sweet lady, (and I well may be projecting me onto K-Joy) dwelling on one negative statement and overlooking only one person has made a negative statement is one of my more self-condemning talents. This person took an over-all really nice weekend during which you were doing what you enjoy - and caused you to question your right to do so. He's a bad, bad person and we don't like him ;-)

US, here's another one that stumps me. Internet "falling in love." Really?? With what....or, more to the point, with whom? My neighbor keeps seeking his soul-mate in Internet chat rooms, falling "in love" or at best in "infatuation," and then, when he actually meets the women, finding out they're pretty much balls-to-the-wall nuts! I once pointed out that he's falling in love with someone's presentation, and they have the ability to delete, re-write, mull over what they think the other person is looking for - in short, complete and utter manipulation and misrepresentation.

I bring this up because it ties into your observation regarding humans being geared to interact in a real-world scene. If the attraction is formed via machine, by the time the people actually meet, preconceptions already are in place, the other person's behaviors will be perceived to fit that preconception and disaster is in the offing!

Sorry, k-joy - I went a bit off-topic. Here's my opinion, sweet lady - and I'm quite old and wise, so you must listen; none of us here on the vine have issued a "Holy Crap, woman! Are you, like, suicidal or something?" response to you. Ergo, write down what he said on a piece of paper, burn it (preferably in a safe, non-fire hazard place) and say as you do so "this is your perception, not mine, and I'm lovingly returning it to you where it belongs."

callie, your 5.2 --- on falling for people online -- makes soooo much sense. How did you get to be so smart?? I know I have read a couple of people online saying they have "crushes" - but reality is that the crush is just about fun and feeling good, and certainly not about anything deep and meaningful. ---Great comment.

US, here's another one that stumps me. Internet "falling in love." Really?? With what....or, more to the point, with whom?My neighbor keeps seeking his soul-mate in Internet chat rooms, falling "in love" or at best in "infatuation," and then, when he actually meets the women, finding out they're pretty much balls-to-the-wall nuts! I once pointed out that he's falling in love with someone's presentation, and they have the ability to delete, re-write, mull over what they think the other person is looking for - in short, complete and utter manipulation and misrepresentation.

I bring this up because it ties into your observation regarding humans being geared to interact in a real-world scene. If the attraction is formed via machine, by the time the people actually meet, preconceptions already are in place, the other person's behaviors will be perceived to fit that preconception and disaster is in the offing!

OK, I'll try to address the above question:

First, I don't think one can really fall "in love" over the internet. I think what is driving it is the lust aspect...which can be maintained because most of what is in the "luster's" mind is self-generated" and/or is having "the blanks filled in" because there is no other way to get the whole scenario filled out based on written words and some "still photograph", etc., alone. You hope for the best...and your mind fills in the blanks with the best...in spite of having no real evidence upon which to base filling in those blanks on.....

Second, we humans can actually "sense" mate compatibility to some degree - perhaps by being able to some how "smell" the DNA of others...and this very important component of love cannot be fulfilled via "remote" means, it must be done "in person".

Third, upon meeting, and establishing initial compatibility/repore, the physical touching - in the way it is done I think - further establishes compatibility. Also, human skin-to-skin touching if done regularly reinforces "feel good" chemicals in the body, which help to further establish and maintain relationships. On the other hand, if relationships "go bad", this same mechanism can reinforce "yo-yo" behavior outsiders just shake thier heads over when it is seen.

So, in summary, I suspect the "find your soulmate via internet" approach has the potential snag that some people get "hung up" in the "gross search" stage and don't progress fairly promptly into the "meet" stage where the rest of the most important part of the "compatibility" is going to be established. Getting caught up in the "thrill of the search" can become a habit.... Better that we remain the "goal seeking" species that we are, and keep our primary focus on that goal, and not get too elaborately involved in the search after potentially compatible people are "ferreted out" via the web.

I hope this makes sense. It's a very condensed version of a long "human mating" discussion.

K-joy and CL,

God, I feel blessed to have you two smart women in my circle of vine friends!

I'm not sure it's about "smart", more just common sense, to me. I have no idea who's at the other end of the computer-based communication, whose picture really is being posted as "them" and, for crying out loud, what they're posting could be copied from some other site or they're just parroting stuff other people have posted that seems to attract someone they've set their caps for! Know what I mean? "Hmmmmm......he/she seems to respond favorably to __________, so I'll use the same tactics and voila! he/she will like/love me!"

This will probably make me wildly unpopular with "love via the Internet" folks, but, ah well; I think people who "fall in love" that way are falling in love with the idea of a person. Certainly they aren't falling in love with a real, flesh-and-blood, flawed human being. I can see being attracted to what someone conveys and liking their ideas, but, as believer so beautifully expressed in his article on attraction, nowhere did he include "posting a picture that may or may not be you and saying a bunch of stuff that you may or may not really think."

Wise man, that believer dude!

K-joy, ---I hope USC comes back to comment on your 5.7.

As has been said, it hardly makes sense that anything real would happen on the internet; yet, surprisingly, I encountered two viners that said they married after meeting in cyberspace. I don't know what site or what kind of site they were, but apparently it is possible.

I agree, K-joy, it is a mysterious phenomenon.

K-joy: I'm at least mentally together enough to state with complete honesty that I have no idea how to really define "love".

My first experience in romantic love was detected by me in it's absence, NOT by it's presence. After that first "genuine" love experience, I could then somehow "tell" if that kind of feeling was back, but still cannot to this day really get down to the nuts and bolts of it and say "here are the characteristics".

I will attempt to address your proposed topic by reexamining the meaning in this context of "lust". There - as usual - is an "all or nothing" type approach to lust, as if it could be turned on and off like a light switch, and went all the way on, and all the way off. Well, I think like so many other things, there are various subtypes of lust.

"Classic lust" is just a manifestation of "lets make a baby right now" which, I suspect, in pure form doesn't necessarily require any intention of commitment beyond the making of the baby.

"Impure lust" is classic lust with some component of "I want to be with this person". I think, when as a man, ones becomes genuinely protective, genuinely concerned about the females mental health and happiness, and genuinely want to "stay around" the female, then the lust is an additive factor to initiate and maintain the pair-bond, but is not the dominating factor.

I can say, as a man, in earlier life I become so caring about some of my female friends that even though they were very, very attractive, I just could not risk losing that "human bond" over then "unknown-to-me" mere sex. When these Ladies got married, I didn't get an invitation to the wedding, and it was not a slight, as it would have been just too difficult to stand there and try to look happy at her wedding as, to me, it was the total loss of friendship to a truly worthy of admiration human being. Also, when the "engagement rings" got shown off, I was left utterly speechless and it was NOT due to the ring. Sometimes they looked surprised, but as they were insightful Ladies, it was not long before they "caught on" and realized I did have strong feelings about their well being, and my reaction was that of a young man who was loosing one of his friends forever.

The valuing of human beings and caring about them is a form of love I think, or at least a form of impure lust as I have above defined it when the friendships may be male-female and capable of mating.

So yes, from the perceiving end, there may be some benevolent intention mixed in with the "lets make a baby right now" lust, but from the end of the person being lusted after, I don't know how that might be detected other than trying to remain open to being attentive to "genuine concern"for your welfare, as opposed to "say and do what it takes" to "lets make a baby right now".

I know "love" is in some way mental as when you lose someone you love it hurts in a way that is very, very real. If not love, then what is it that could make a human being feel the way they do when "love" is present? If no-one can say what it is, it's a certainty no one can really say what it isn't either.

This is a verbose way of saying I don't really know, but I have my suspicions about how love might have a mental component, and how that might or might not play into human relationships...

K-joy,

You touched on a few different things. Most of them are opinions for all of us because everyone takes in emotions differently.

First, you talk about love. To me, love and sex, can go together, obviously - but I never call physical attraction, love. That is sheer biology. That is sheer animal attraction. To me, love is something entirely different. I don't think we know for sure where it comes from, but there was a good analysis article on msnbc that discussed a physical component that related to "chemistry." I had read a similar article prior to that. The information pointed out that two people can have a strong physical attraction, compatibility in many areas, have many things in common - yet have no actual "chemistry." I think the chemistry goes a long way as a part of what we call "love." It has been noted that after years, it's the chemistry that keeps the attraction going.

Next, that someone insinuated that you were damaged sounds suspicious to me. I think that person might have been doing it intentionally - does not actually have any basis for it - because they don't know you that well.... and sometimes people say things without really thinking about it first. If this is someone that is a whack-job - then you have every reason to feel freaked out, imo. But if this is someone that is attracted to you and wants to understand you - that is something different and honest, imo. Honest attraction is real and just happens - it isn't planned. The whack-job is probably planned and looks for victims in my guess.

Last, I suppose people can manufacture feelings. But why would we care if we don't have the same/similar feelings?? Atleast, that's my opinion. It takes two.;-) ...

There are people on NV that have developed friendships and see each other outside of this venue. So, obviously, it was a connection they made mentally that lead to a friendship. As for a relationship, as I said earlier, I have come across two on NV that said they met their mate online. I think it seems very possible that if two people have a mental connection/compatibility, and then meet and have a physical attraction - then it makes sense that it could develop into something more.

I have to agree with you on the trust factor you mentioned. I wonder how many there are on some of these sites that are lusty/perveted types that are looking for prey - scary!!

The possibly sad part is that there might be someone 'genuinely' attracted to you and that if you spent some time posting with them, you might find you are attracted as well. What if you meet them, and there is no physical attraction? -- That would be a tough one, huh?

So, to sum it up with your scenario - this guy is either a pervert praying on lots of people -or- this is someone that is attracted to you and has taken the time to explore the attraction. Does that and all of this make sense to you??

..ooops, preying, not "praying" -- although a prayer wouldn't hurt anything : )

LOL - for sure on the real world!! That's why I think that the majority of those attractions just happen and weren't planned. I hope to God that most people find their friends and relationships in the 'real world'! ;-)

Nice chat, K-joy, and fun article. Thanks!

K-joy,

Ya know, there was something else you brought up (in another article) that I didn't comment on at the time and wished I had. That's the "romance" thing - maybe people forgot how to do it? And maybe many don't think it is important? Yet, I can see how and why it is gone....jobs, busy lives, complicated issues in today's world and all. When life and times were simpler for our grandparents or whomever, they had time for it, maybe.