Reged: 12/13/04
Posts: 4490
Loc: West Orange, NJ (IBS-D)
That isn't really responsive to what I said. You're accusing people of laughing at someone who is suffering but your original post didn't talk about anyone suffering. It was just a general comment about the possible consequences of an injured tailbone. And the people who were laughing weren't laughing at you or at someone"s suffering. They were laughing at the word itself or possibly because someone asked what a coccyx is and they were laughing at themselves because they wanted to ask the same thing and didn't. And after a while I suspect some people were laughing because they wanted to show solidarity with other posters they consider friends who were being lectured by you. Which is why I'm in the middle of this mess.
I have to echo DoubleJ here, Windchimes. You have the potential to be a real asset to these Boards. You're knowledgeable, you want to help, you're generous with your time. But you are so sure you know how everyone else should act that you're alienating the very people you could be helping.
There are always going to be people on these Boards you can't stand; goodness knows there are people on these Boards I can't stand. But you'll make yourself and everyone else here crazy if you can't learn to just ignore them. You can't be a policeman on these Boards. I know, I've tried. A statement like this:
Quote: If the original poster is laughing at themselves, then feel to laugh WITH them. If not, don't laugh AT them!
isn't going to accomplish a thing except to make everyone who reads it say, "You can't tell me what to do." And you can't. But if you said, "It hurts my feelings when I feel like people here are laughing at me" you might be surprised to find that most people truly want to be kind.
We're all different, Windchimes. Some of us are comfortable with Greek words and dictionaries; some of us aren't. Some of us are young; some aren't. Some of us giggle in the back of the room no matter what's being talked about; some of us sit in the front row, pay strict attention, and never crack a smile. It doesn't make some of us valuable and and some of us not. It just makes us different.
Cut us all some slack, Windchimes. We're mostly decent people around here.
-------------------- [Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]