The Meaning of Words.

First of all: Allimom! – You hit the nail directy and firmly on the head. It *was* a Teflon™ pan, and there *were* deep scratches on it. It seems that this causes uneven heat distribution on the pan, and creates concentrated “hot spots” that can be dangerous when frying in oil. Best advice I found was not to use Teflon cookware when frying. I never knew that.

In gratitude, I encourage everyone to please visit Allimom’s Diary and take the survey that her husband needs people to complete for his class. It took me about three minutes to complete, and I know Allimom and Mr. Allimom would both appreciate it.

Last night The Professor and I talked about my continued absence on the forum he runs. He doesn’t see why I can’t simply ignore the person who has been giving me grief, which is exactly what he’d do. He also doesn’t see why I became so upset with this person in the first place.

Why did I become so upset? The problem boils down to language perception, and how I expect people to choose their words when writing. If someone wants to debate a topic, I expect them to use different words than if they wanted to pick a fight. If someone wants to use argument to sway opinion, I expect that they would choose from a different vocabulary than if they wanted to use to belittle another’s opinion.

I further expect people to be more careful of the words they choose when writing than in their speech, because they don’t have the advantage of tonal inflection to color the words to the shade of sentiment being expressed. When speaking, you need to choose your words quickly, and don’t have time to muse over shades of nuance; when writing you have more time to make a considered choice.

A month ago, I called someone an “opportunist” in writing on a forum. It was meant as a criticism, but I believed at the time (and still believe) that it was an accurate reflection of how that person behaved. That person’s returning shot was to tell me to perform an act that usually requires the biological unit to be a hermaphrodite to be able to accomplish. I did not appreciate the comment. To say the least. After having been baited by this person over a period of months (it would not be unfair to say “years”, actually) I decided that this was my breaking point.

The Professor attempted to make the case last night that it means nothing for someone to tell another person that. “It’s just how people talk.” I looked at him and asked if he could ever remember saying that to me. He (rather rapidly) agreed that he’d never say that to me, but pointed out he had said “screw you” to me on more than one occasion. I had to remind him that the first time he said that to me I thought he was a complete jerk, and it took rather a long time for him to be able to redeem himself in my eyes. I also pointed out there was a difference between saying that in jest (as happens between us now) and saying it in anger. I’m not sure he “gets” it. To him, it’s all just words. To me, it’s nuance. And in this case, the nuance was an obvious disdain and lack of respect for me.

The lack of respect hurt. I, at least, was battling with facts. I did not expect a return salvo of spiteful disrespect. As I said yesterday, my problem isn’t with trust, so much as expectations.

Why can’t I ignore the person? Probably for the same reason I can’t simply slam the phone down on telemarketers or why I get trapped by salesmen on commission when shopping. It isn’t polite to ignore someone. It feels wrong to ignore someone. It can even be interpretted as a direct insult to ignore someone. I don’t want to insult this person. I don’t even want to be impolite to this person. I just want the confrontations to go away. The only way to avoid confrontation, sometimes, is to walk away from it.

Traffic has dropped off at the forum, and the implicit blame is that it’s my fault. The Prof has now come as close as he ever will to directly asking me to start posting again. He does respect my stance, even if he doesn’t understand it. I have to decide if I’m ready to jump back in again. If I return, it will not be under my old handle. I declared once that “The Elf” is dead, and I won’t be gainsaid on that.