Islander7 wrote: By the way, Gaz, no offence taken, it's literally impossible to offend me, be it with the stranger on the internet, or with a mate at the camp fire. I recognise that all people are different and I have zero expectations of others, especially so on the internet. From every conversations in my life I'm absorbing what I find useful to myself and ignoring the rest.
I know it's not really my place to jump in as your defender Islander, and that you are no doubt more than capable of defending yourself, but I just don't like bullies and I really dislike cowards.
When someone with whom you have a relationship makes fun of you, it can be a joke.
But when some random nobody on the internet ridicules someone from the safe anonymity of the web for asking a legitimate question or expressing their opinion, that is cowardly, and needs to be called out for what it is.
His throw away assertion that it doesn't matter because "it's only the internet" shows the same callous disregard for others that has caused people to take their own life because of being bullied or ridiculed online.
The thing with the anonymity of the net is, you don't know if the person you're talking to is strong as a bull or hovering on the edge and just putting on an impression of normalcy. Words can and have killed people that are in a bad place psychologically. I lost a great mate to suicide, he was hiding life threatening depression under a happy, joking exterior, then seemingly out of the blue, he was gone. We have never found out what the catalyst was for his decision, but it was enough.
Anyway mate, apologies if I overstepped.