There is an increasing pattern of folks not reading people at all after the first few posts. They form a picture in their heads of that person and then use that as a reference whenever they read one of their postings, thus giving themselves the impression that Martin is always obscene, brucie is always a dork, Shambles is always a self-centered shitstirrer and Little Hawk is always a Shatner-centric jackass.

Consequently, they feel they don't even need to read the post to respond to it in the recognised manner. There have even been posts to the effect that if the poster and the responder ever met in public, one would inflict violence upon the other without further ado.

I have trouble reading people at the best of times. I was a naturally trusting person, but I've had too many experiences of people I considered friends saying one thing to my face and another behind my back, trying to turn others against me and breaking promises. I hope I take each post on its own merit, rather than answering to the picture I have in my head of the poster, but being a mere human, it's very, very difficult.

LTS