Here's an observation on modern life for all of you. I don't watch television. Hate it, don't own one. Back when I had been married a couple of years, I commented to my husband that his father obviously didn't like me. There were too many sarcastic digs and brush-offs coming from him to me.

My DH explained, however, that my father-in-law was just imitating the roughness and rudeness he was seeing on television. So the two guys had a heart-to-heart and my father-in-law started acting normal. (In other words, he started to respond to me with his real feelings rather than with the fashionable, stylized hostility of TV.) Now it is clear that he and I like each other just fine.

So, if you watch movies and TV a lot, remember that people in the shows say things for shock value which, if used much in the real world, will put an end to friendship or love .

Obviously, the same thing could happen in one's posts to the Internet.