I get a lot of feedback to my articles and website via
email. Around 98% of it is so friendly and pleasant
that I post it on my site, but in that other 2% there
are some real doozies.
Email and newsgroups have qualities that seem to
invite unusual behavior. Again, these are very rare
occurrences, but when they happen they exhibit very
clear patterns:
For some men, the anonymity of email and newsgroups
seems to provide a rare ability to express strong
emotions without the filters normally (and quite
rightly) imposed by society.
For some women, email is an easy way to pose as
morally superior without the nuisance of actually
~being~ morally superior.
EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE MEN
(No, girls, that's not redundant. Let's not be catty.)
Sorry fellas, but it would be reverse-sexist of me to
pretend that I get this kind of email from women:
Dear Ms Cox,
You said that people who don't like
spam have small brains. Well, I HATE
spam and I have an extra large brain,
so you are stupid and everything you
say is stupid, and you are stupid, and
anyone who thinks you are not stupid
is stupid.
You're welcome,
Mike S.
Angry Young Man
Wow! I guess someone wasn't breastfed.
If anyone actually walked up to me and spoke that way
in person, they'd walk away with a wake-up dose of
pepper spray sluicing through their freshly violated
colon.
Obviously, "Mike S." possesses the kind of brainpower
that makes one-card monty dealers rejoice in their
career choice, but is that an excuse for such a
self-indulgent attack? What is?
"Every normal man must be tempted at
times to spit on his hands, hoist the
black flag, and begin slitting throats."
H.L. Mencken
Sweet Jesus!! That's the NORMAL ones?!? Thank God
there are so few. (Oops, catty.)
I suppose that all men have a demon of rage crouching
deep within, tightly coiled, set to spring at the
least provocation like a runner off the blockssome
murky throwback to the cave days when survival might
depend on a split-second transition from sound sleep
to ferocious bloodlust; a mood swing on steroids.
"He who makes a beast of himself gets
rid of the pain of being a man."
Samuel Johnson
Ahhh. I always thought that kinda pinched look meant
men were grappling with the Big Thoughts (or that they
were a little backed up). Now I know that it's the
Pain of Being a Man.
Strangely, I'm not sure that most men are aware of "the
Pain of Being a Man" themselves. I asked every guy I
know about this secret man-pain thing and they all
looked at me like I was pulling their, uh... legs.
WOMEN GET "BOTHERED"
"Bothered?" I hear you asking. "What the hell does
that mean?"
Dunno. I mean, I know what bothered means. It's that
gnawing little feeling of contempt we get when other
people don't have the sense to be more like us.
What I don't know is why the botherEE would naturally
assume that her botheredNESS was of the teensiest
modicum of interest to the botherER.
The opening phrase "It bothers me that..." smacks of a
woman freshly empowered by her personal assertiveness
coach, stamping her little foot down on any and every
subject which arouses her miff... price of bananas,
the holocaust, video rewind charges, etc.
Dear Ms Cox,
It bothers me that you compare the
price of bananas with the holocaust
in which six million yaddas were yadda
yadda'd and yadda yadda yadda.
Yadda,
Barbara J.
Moral Compass At Large
Bothered schmothered. Incensed, irate, fuming,
outraged... those are the emotions that get things
done. Bothered is a scrawny little turd of a response,
notable mainly for its prissy self-importance.
Bothered isn't a strong enough emotion to fuel much of
an effort, so about the only place you'll see it is on
call-in radio shows, at PTA meetings and in hastily
dispatched email.
In the above case, for instance, Barbara might have
enough passion to dash off a "bothered" email, but I
doubt you'll find her tirelessly stalking geriatric
Nazis throughout darkest Argentina armed with a car
battery wired to a set of nipple clips.
Though I doubt her husband gets off so easily.
IN SUMMARY
I live in an idyllic part of America where polite
motorists still honk and give each other the finger
rather than the less cordial hail of gunfire.
On the information superhighway, however, the only
regional barriers are language-based, so it's not so
easy to remain insulated from the baser natures of our
fellow travelers.
Or our own! I'm sure we've all been known to pop off
a few rounds at our fellow netizens now and then.
Hell, it's half the fun!
About the Author
Linda Cox (J.A.M.G.) sits around spins her little webs
and thinks the whole world revolves around her, but in
the whole vast configuration of things, she's Just
Another Marketing Guru. http://www.LindaCox.com