Originally Posted by chasm54

LOL. Congratulations, that's one of the more entertaining posts in this forum for some time. And you are absolutely entitled to your opinion ... though I must say I think it decidedly odd that you should even remember an outdated signature of mine. Much less odd that you should misinterpret it.

You make the mistake that many make here, namely that you think you can know the poster from their posts. This is at the heart of the repeated discussions, in 50+, about how it isn't as cosy as some people want.

I'm not interested in who you are. i'm not interested in whether I'd like you in real life. You may be absolutely delightful, I can't possibly know and therefore I don't care. I am only able to read your posts, and those of others, and respond to waht interests me. I do not imagine that by reading what you post here I can have any grasp whatever of how you might be as a person. Nor, when I disagree with you, am I making judgments about you as a person. If you take disagreement personally, thatis your problem, not mine.

By the same token, I am simply indifferent to your opinion of me. In the first place, what people think of me is their business, not mine, and reflects their personality rather than my qualities or lack of them. In the second place, people who encounter me solely in a digital environment cannot possibly know anything about me beyond what I choose to share, and mostly what I choose to share are my views about their opinions. It's remarkable how many people are so insecure that they cannot stand their opinions being interrogated.

It hasn't much to do with erudition. It has to do with being uninterested in the illusion that in a place like this one is actually forming relationships.