There are a lot of strange people out there in chat rooms (and forums). And they all go in to the room for different reasons. I see these rooms like the local pub. A place for people to gather. But some of them are in bad moods. Or too drunk. Or just plain anti-social. And they are there for just a fight. There to cause trouble. There to wind people up. To annoy people.
At least when you are in the pub you can see that they are drunk. You can see their face as they talk, so you can tell if they are joking. In a chat room online you cannot see this. So you have to guess as to what someone's true meaning is. We can only make this guess based on our own experiences.
I know in some discussions I have online I will bump into the negative person. Everything you say they will pick on. They try and turn everything into something bad. Something negative. They are having a bad day and think you should to. They are upset at people around them being happy or having fun.
Or they are just trying to pick an argument. Trying to get some odd satisfaction out of proving that THEY are RIGHT and YOU are WRONG. Even though in most cases you are both right and would learn more from a compromise.
People are plain weird. I have spent years watching and studying people. One of my favourite games is sitting in a pub with a mate or my girlfriend discussing the crowd who are in. Making up little back stories for them.
Through my job I meet some weird and wonderful people from all levels of life. And the one thing for sure is that no two people are the same or think the same.
What one must learn to do is to know not to take things personally. Back in the past I used to always need the "Last Word" in any debate online. I had to prove MY point. But then I started to realise how annoyed and frustrated I'd be getting that this other person "didn't understand".
Until the moment that I realised I was just arguing with ONE person. And it was much better to walk away. Soooo much more satisfying that way. You can just sit back and reassess. You soon see from this the petty arguments some people go into. Or the childish way they will intentionally mis-read your post. Or reply to it line by line to PROVE their point. When all they are really doing is showing how much of a petty idiot they really are. So many self-centred selfish people out there
You have to learn to laugh at the world.
( See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo Lyrics here for translation if required:
http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics...ide_Life.shtml )
That XKCD cartoon I linked to above was part of my revelation. Seeing that made me laugh and then realise it was me. So I sat back from the keyboard. I let the bickering go on without me. And I felt so much better. Walking away from an argument is much better than wading in to "Prove I am Right!".
It is then that you start to see that there are so many people out there just trying to pick a fight. Just like that drunken idiot in the pub. The person everyone would avoid in real life. So we learn to avoid them in the chat rooms. Avoid the confrontation.
@Warrior of the Light: I laughed when I saw your small print of 90mins of XKCD!! I used to leave it open as a tab in Opera when I was working through the back issues. There is so much simple wisdom in that comic. I especially love it as it is coming from an Engineer's view of the world. And we certainly look at the world in odd ways.