Huge egos at GNHQ

I have no problem with heated debate (as I said above) or with firmly held views firmly expressed.

That is not the point at issue. What we are talking about here are personal remarks or flippant put-downs that sabotage threads.

I have several members with whom I exchange pms - they seldom appear on the threads because they are fed up with the sort of thing I have just described.

If HQ find such posts unacceptable, then all power to their elbow if they decide to delete them.

I have hardly ever come across threads where unkindness is rife. Perhaps there is a range of definitions of unkindness so that what one person might think unkind another just takes to be a difference of opinion.

It is not unkind to say that one has a fundamental difference of opinion or judgment over an issue and to explain why in robust terms. That's what debating is.

[slightlybaffled] emoji

Bit!

We need a it of push/pull to keep us energised.This is not to say we have to deliberately upset anyone, but we are all adults after all.

Yes Ana, I agree with you wholeheartedly , and may I say you are looking extremely good these days, I do like your hair, have some cake?
See, how boring it would become?

I don't believe that anyone sets out to be deliberately 'unkind'.

The tone of some posts on the more controversial threads might seem a bit confrontational or even belligerent at times, but usually a poster is responding to what they see as an attack on their beliefs or opinion.

The heated exchange of views is a normal part of most forums, it would be boring if everyone just agreed, or pretended to agree, with each other, surely?

Loopylou - don't be intimidated - your posts are valued, as is your presence on the forum.

Like some others I avoid some threads where unkindness is rife - life is too short to be bothered with it.

Loopylou, I have always thought your posts sounded confident.

Agree with your posts, thatbags and Trisher.

Despite posters saying they're 'plain speaking' etc I'm finding myself staying off threads, and GN in general, when some GNs are posting, having been accused of being thin-skinned and if that's the worst you've ever suffered then you're in cloud cuckoo land

My mother had the 'sticks and stones ' mantra but instead of toughening me up I retreated and analysed every word and became very lacking in self esteem which continues to this day. I always been a.'People pleaser' and avoided conflict but some on here then said my insecurities as being self-inflicted, so no win I guess

I do wonder if it has a lot to do with how you were brought up. The "sticks and stones...." was always drummed into me. But I was also raised to argue my corner and not take personally anyone whose opinion conflicted with mine. I do think that being easily hurt is sometimes now seen as 'better' than being resilient. Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?

I wonder if that is what people often want: permission to feel hurt so that they feel their feelings are 'natural' and therefore, it could be said, justified.

I'm including myself in the term 'people'.

One could regard a GNHQ deletion as a sort of compensation but it doesn't really assuage hurt feelings, just justifies them.

In that case, go ahead and feel hurt, I suppose. Even in a case of deliberate hurt I think we still have to it's still wise to "deal with" our own hurt feelings as much as we can rather than trying to make someone or something else deal with it. Monetary compensation, for instance, has its uses but I bet some people who have received monetary compensation still feel hurt so the feelings bit still hasn't been dealt with. No-one else can do this for them though of course a good counsellor could probably help.

That is the difficult part, Tegan, knowing whether the hurt was inflicted deliberately on a particular poster or an accidental aside on a general statement. As always, it comes down to interpretation. Even general statements can sometimes come over as too heavily emphasised for the context and the other posts.

It is not easy to write a straight and honest reply on some controversial subject that doesn't imply criticism of someone's previous post. It has to be done fairly tactfully. Criticising the poster should be done with even more care, though if they display greater than usual stupidity, credulousness or bull-headedness it is a great temptation to say so.

I'd say the rule of thumb is that anyone who dishes it out should be prepared to take it without complaint. Some of the most critical and insistent of posters are also the quickest at claiming to have been insulted. They don't have my sympathy.

But what if we're pretty sure the hurt 'wasn't' accidental?

Yes, janea, it would. But having accepted that any hurt I felt had not been deliberate, but was, as it were, accidental so more to do with me than with the person who supposedly caused the hurt, which is where we seemed to have arroved on this thread before my last comment, i think we should just deal with our feelings ourselves. I wasn't talking about criminal damages.

I don't think it is realistic to say we can control our own feelings. That is akin to saying we can control pain. I think we 'bleed' just the same when we are hurt mentally as when we are hurt physically.

Sometimes the written word on a forum aimed specifically at oneself can feel incredibly upsetting, especially if read late at night when one is on ones own .

Do you mean just your own feelings are your own responsibility Bags, or do you mean that everyone is solely responsible for their own feelings?

The courts awards damages for 'hurt feelings' and distress - this would imply that others have been responsible for causing that distress and hurting the plaintiff's feelings, wouldn't it?

My feelings are my own responsibility, not anyone else's. I react to things other people do or say in positive and negative ways. It would be unrealistic of me to want to avoid all occasions where my reaction to something someone else has done or said brought on feelings I'd rather not have.

I don't think they do deliberately set out to do it. They will describe themselves as "plain speaking" "telling it as it is" and in these parts "calling a spade a b....y shovel". They have no idea what their word can do.

Indeed Nonnie - I can only imagine that this is the case, as I find it hard to think that someone might deliberately set out to hurt. It seems so pointless.

Perhaps some people are just so sure of themselves and so self confident they don't understand how others could be hurt by what they say? Maybe they have had a career where what they said was the rule (e.g. teachers but not limited to them) and so have become desensitized to the hurt they can cause?

I have come across such people in 'real life' and realized they are completely unaware of how they make people feel. It is bound to be even harder when we can only see what they feel in a few words.

I'm happy for heated discussion.