Burke Dismantles " Who Am I To Judge"?

[AccountDeleted]

I do not know how FP or Lilllabettt read your words, or their reactions to them. I can only offer what my impressions are and how they might 'trigger' reactions in me.
 
From glancing back over the posts where you used the phrase, 'Only God knows the future,' I could read that as being dismissive of any ideas or hypotheses it was in reply to. Someone could have put some effort or emotion into a post or idea, only to have it shot down in (what could be seen as) an overly pious manner.
 
Each person has his own boundaries when it comes to teasing. What 'Phatmass' (or a group of longstanding posters who know each other very well) says is an ok way to respond to each other may not be ok to any one person, and may not even be charitable in an objective sense (because a clique has formed, more focussed on itself than on God).
 
Being called 'little one' will register differently with different people. It may be condescending for someone on the cusp of adulthood. It may be insulting.
(Personal anecdote: when someone I knew quite well online decided to call himself a family member of mine, and then go around telling my (irl) friends how they should and shouldn't interact with me, it was not just condescending but a stepping over of boundaries and a kind of forced intimacy.)
So someone old enough to be my grandmother, but who was not my grandmother, using such a term would be almost an attack on my own self (in a broad sense of the word - perhaps encroachment or trespass is better).
 
The last part of your sentence 'But in the interests of peace, I will avoid teasing FP from now on - he obviously can't take it' reads to me as quite damning. The tone I read from that gave off superiority: he's not good/smart/clever/mature/enough of a man to deal with me, poor lamb. He gets excluded and I'll sit and chitchat with my friends.
 
Communication is hard and online communication is harder. Everyone has their issues and deserves to be treated gently. The majority of people on Phatmass do not, I think, know each other well enough to be able to treat this place as though it were a living room full with their oldest friends.
 
And once more: this is all how I can see myself having reacted to some of these things in the not-so-distant past. I do not claim that this is how anyone actually has interpreted things.
 
TL;DR: Take care not to frustrate and upset people, as you do not know what they go through.

 
I didn't find it too long to read through and I felt you made some good points. I don't necessarily agree with them all, but then it is rare when two posters on the Internet agree with everything another poster writes.At least you ask me questions in a considered and thoughtful way (I think I used those two words about you before?) which some posters don't seem to be able to do - they use the flame and run away method. I appreciate having things to respond to. Otherwise all I can do is try to find an appropriate meme to answer things that aren't really being said!
 
Some of the things that confuse me are that you say the majoirty of people on phatmass do not know each other well enough to be able to treat this place as if it were a living room full of their oldest friends. And yet, this is exactly what phatmass appears to be promoting so much of the time -- PHAMILY! We are the phatmass phamily and Winchester is the line and Lil Red is the den mother I think and Catherine M is the Scholar and AL is the mother of the young set and Aloysius is the resident smart guy and oh I could go on and label the lot, but the most important of course is that dUSt is the boss ... and because I have been around since 2007, and shared more than my fair share of personal info both on here and on my blogs, which many phatmassers read over the years, I felt I was somehow part of that phamily of phriends!
 
Your statement that '... you used the phrase, 'Only God knows the future,' I could read that as being dismissive of any ideas or hypotheses it was in reply to. Someone could have put some effort or emotion into a post or idea, only to have it shot down in (what could be seen as) an overly pious manner.'
 
Well, perhaps it could be seen that way, but perhaps the person who saw it that way is being a tad hypersensitive as well because I have read much, much, much more sarcastic comments from Winchester (and others) - maybe not in this thread but after all, he 'is the line'. So the question here is, just how well does FP know me? Obviously not well at all if he thinks I am being 'overly pious'. I am probably one of the least pious people on this phorum - maybe not THE least, but pretty close to it. So my comment about only God knowing the future comes, not from piety but from my own life plans being thwarted over and over and over again, and yet trying to find some meaning and comfort (and humor) behind the saying that God must know what is happening and is taking care of everything - and after all, only He knows the future. And FP's own profile says that 'I love making a fool of myself, and I just love laughter and making people laugh in general.'  So I assumed that he could take it.
 
Sure, FP could be having a rough week, and that's really upsetting for him. That's why when he said he was going to take a vacation, I thought it was a good idea. I only just came back from a month's hiatus from the phorum myself because I 'needed a vacation'. I just entered a convent for the millionth time and it isn't easy for an old broad like me, so I decided that I needed to focus on settling in here before getting too involved in phatmass again. So absences are a great idea when one is getting too upset about the whole online thing. I came back trying to be much more in tune with dUSt's philosophy of 'Meh'. Meaning that I wasn't going to take it all too seriously. When I wrote to him personally about some of my concerns, dUSt replied that I was being a 'Debbie Downer'. So I come back, trying to be a 'Suzy Sunshine' and it offends people because I'm not taking things seriously enough.
 
Sure, anyone of any age can do hypotheticals - but that's all they are - hypotheticals. What's the seriousness in that? I love hypotheticals and did one on the Lame Board, but I don't take any of it seriously.
 
And finally I'll comment on your statement that 'The last part of your sentence 'But in the interests of peace, I will avoid teasing FP from now on - he obviously can't take it' reads to me as quite damning. The tone I read from that gave off superiority: he's not good/smart/clever/mature/enough of a man to deal with me, poor lamb. He gets excluded and I'll sit and chitchat with my friends.'
 
Really? Is this how you see what I wrote? Sometimes I wonder if I am even speaking the English language. One minute I am teasing FP for calling him 'little one' and the next minute I am being damning because I say I won't tease him by using any names other than FP. The tone you read from that gave off superiority did it? Ok, well, let me just say that as a 62 year old woman who has been a psychiatric nurse, a teacher, a university Department Chairperson and a mother and grandmother who fostered and adopted kids of all ages, including teenagers, I do know a thing or two about the ability of pubescent young people to turn everything into a drama of epic proportions - where everything is all about themselves and affecting their entire life. So yes, perhaps I am a bit superior in my understanding of just what is happening here - I wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly, but yes, it IS all a storm in a teacup to me. And obviously (according to your interpretation), I consider FP not to be good/smart/clever/mature/enough of a man to deal with me. Well, right on a couple of counts there. I don't consider him to be a man at all - yet. And I don't think he is very mature, no. But as for his cleverness, goodness and smartness - all of these I see in great proportion in him - if he survives into adulthood before driving himself insane with all this drama. But since I have seen one of my daughters in particular transform from a feral and insane rebel into a Sergeant in the US Army, and a medic as well, then I do have hope for the next generation, including FP. And maybe he needs some psychological help or medication - I have no idea what his personal situation is. I know he is stressed because he asekd for prayers in the Prayer Board because he was doubting his faith, and he alternates between wanting to be a priest and then not again, so yes, he is a bit hypersensitive right now. But that means that he might be seeing hurts where they weren't intended, not necessarily that everyone should start wearing kids gloves until he can handle it again. Is that tough love? I don't know. I just know that none of my posts were meant to be anything more than 'meh' - let's have a little fun.
 
But I would suggest that you, and Lillllabettt and FP and everyone who sees evil intent in my posts to take a giant step back and try to be a little more charitable about my motivation. I don't come here to disrupt or to cause people pain - although this can occur, being the Internet. I come here to have fun. And by golly, until dUSt decides that I have stepped over the edge and he bans me, then I am going to do so - even if only a few oldies like myself, or perhaps other sarcastically minded phatmassers who like to have a good laugh, want to respond to me. I try to stay away from the really controversial threads, and had no idea this one would turn out the way it did. Wow. What a mind blower.
 
 
 ========
tl;dr  What in God's green earth happened to this thread????

[CatherineM]

When we give speeches and I tease my husband about his illness, we sometimes get shocked expressions or gasps. I explain that as a Southern woman it is my God given right to give my husband the dickens. If I don't, I'm not treating him like a man, but like a patient or child.

I mean, after all, it is quite funny that when we were dating he got paranoid that I was trying to poison him with my chap stick.

[Ash Wednesday]

Sigh.

[AccountDeleted]

When we give speeches and I tease my husband about his illness, we sometimes get shocked expressions or gasps. I explain that as a Southern woman it is my God given right to give my husband the dickens. If I don't, I'm not treating him like a man, but like a patient or child.

I mean, after all, it is quite funny that when we were dating he got paranoid that I was trying to poison him with my chap stick.

 

 

You're right. There are things that just seem funny, even when they have a serious base. As a former psych nurse, some of us used to have such good laughs over the antics of the patients, but then we were locked in a ward with 30+ of them (in the days before good medications) and the things we saw and heard and had to put up with would have driven anyone insane themselves if they couldn't have a sense of humor about it sometimes. We treated the patients with respect, but when we were just nurses alone together, sometimes we just had to laugh.

 

And one day I locked a psychiatrist in the ward because she had come to see a patient (and only the nurses had keys to the ward) but she looked like one herself. Another nurse had let her in and I didn't see her, so when she tried to leave, I told her that we would be eating soon and she should sit down and wait. She told me she was a psychiatrist and asked me to unlock the door. I smiled sweetly and agreed with her (never confront the delusion) but her wild hair and strange look made me convinced she was a patient. Another nurse had to come up to me and whisper that yes, she really was a doctor before I let her out. Boy did we nurses laugh about that later!

 

Sorry for the hijack! :hijack:

 

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Edited September 10, 2014 by nunsense

[Lilllabettt]

 as a Southern woman it is my God given right to give my husband the dickens.
 

 

 

nunsense + fp do you have an announcement to make

 

honestly nunsense its probably a case of wrong time/wrong place because you are only the latest on a merry go round of people taking the phetus for a spin recently. so its not that you are doing anything so awful you're just the last straw.  

[AccountDeleted]

nunsense + fp do you have an announcement to make

 

honestly nunsense its probably a case of wrong time/wrong place because you are only the latest on a merry go round of people taking the phetus for a spin recently. so its not that you are doing anything so awful you're just the last straw.  

 

 

This is probably the nicest thing you have ever said to me - thank you.

 

Unfortunately though as I am living in a convent, I am already engaged, and besides, he isn't legal age yet. If I wait until he grows up, I might be dead by then..... gotta consider these things you know. :)

[puellapaschalis]

Perhaps I can just best say it so: my impression and experience of online communication is that it requires a very thick skin of oneself, and a charitable assumption of thin skin on the part of others.

 

Obviously this asks for finger- and tongue-biting, and I've learned the hard way that I do not have a moral right to post my thoughts or jokes or musings anywhere. There is no arbitration on who's being the least unreasonable. Being economical with words is often best (I am verbose and this is hard).

 

This (along with my two previous posts) are, then, once more, how I see myself having interpreted some things. I put them here because they seemed to had not yet been considered.

[AccountDeleted]

Perhaps I can just best say it so: my impression and experience of online communication is that it requires a very thick skin of oneself, and a charitable assumption of thin skin on the part of others.

 

Obviously this asks for finger- and tongue-biting, and I've learned the hard way that I do not have a moral right to post my thoughts or jokes or musings anywhere. There is no arbitration on who's being the least unreasonable. Being economical with words is often best (I am verbose and this is hard).

 

This (along with my two previous posts) are, then, once more, how I see myself having interpreted some things. I put them here because they seemed to had not yet been considered.

 

 

And I appreciated your point of view, whether I agree with it myself or not, it is good of you to spend time and effort in articulating your thoughts. Thank you.

[superblue]

 NO ONE INSPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION !

[Winchester]

 calling me "little one" 

[Vincent Vega]

I just notice there's like a roaming pack of posters on here lately who seem to be following fp around and poking him with a stick. so maybe I decided to follow them around and poke them with a stick.

 

it seems pretty clear to me he's not enjoying it so why don't everybody knock it off. cool your frickin jets. that seems like the decent thing to do.

 

or at least wait until he has done something that actually deserves ridicule. Lots of super wise ripe old people enjoy speculating on who the next pope will be, actually they take bets on it.  

 

so why don't we just lay off the kid O.K. 

 

I wish I had a Phatmass mommy.

[PhuturePriest]

I wish I had a Phatmass mommy.

 

I wish you had a paper bag so you could cover your big meanie face.

[AccountDeleted]

 

 

 

Read the fine print before responding please:

 

Disclaimer: This is a joke, a generic joke. It is not directed towards anyone in particular or even generally. It is meant to be funny. It is not meant to inflame, demean or be sarcastic, except in an amusing way. It implies no feelings of aggression, hostility or superiority in any way towards anyone at all. It is a fictitious llama, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Reading and responding to this post implies acceptance of our Terms and Conditions under US Federal law. A copy of our Terms and Conditions may be obtained by writing to us at PO Box 999999, Santa Maria Lane, San Juan Islands, WA 90909-090. Failure to read and comply with these Terms and Conditions is a Breach of the Federal Drama Llama Act of 1999 and carries a penalty of (please write for full Terms and Conditions).

[The Bus Station]

[PhuturePriest]