Creepy people
Mar. 1st, 2004 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4Okay, now, I'm used to people indulging in flirtatious (and at times obscene) banter on newsgroups. I don't mind people making comments about bits of my body, items of my underwear, and so on, particularly if those comments are funny. If the wordplay's good, anything goes.
But there's one person on uk.misc who is pissing me off. He's clearly only about 18 so I suppose he'll grow out of it, but he's made a couple of comments about removing my knickers and "rummaging around in my bra" which just make me feel really uncomfortable. I think if I got on with him in other threads -- if I felt he was a friend, or at least a generally decent person -- then I wouldn't object, though I still wouldn't think he was being particularly funny. But he's certainly not a friend (I've already got into one argument with him about cars -- he believes cars should be as fast as possible; he believes that he should be allowed to pay only one lot of road tax for 2 cars; he also believes that the size/power of the car has no effect on the cost of insurance) and when he's not shouting about how big his cock^H^H^H^Hcar is, he's quoting 20-page posts and only adding "ROTFPMSL!!!!" at the end. In other words, he's a wanker.
The problem is, I don't feel I can object on the group (and I certainly don't feel I can respond the way I want to, i.e. something along the lines of "fuck off, you top-posting wankfisted teenage sleazemonkey") without everybody else calling me a hypocrite, and/or telling me that if I can't take the good-natured banter I should get out of the group.
I don't like killfiling individuals but I suspect it's the only thing to do; but it makes me feel as though I've failed -- I don't want to react to something so stupid, something that basically amounts to a small boy sniggering at rude words. But I still feel uncomfortable with it.
Maybe I'm just overreacting.
But there's one person on uk.misc who is pissing me off. He's clearly only about 18 so I suppose he'll grow out of it, but he's made a couple of comments about removing my knickers and "rummaging around in my bra" which just make me feel really uncomfortable. I think if I got on with him in other threads -- if I felt he was a friend, or at least a generally decent person -- then I wouldn't object, though I still wouldn't think he was being particularly funny. But he's certainly not a friend (I've already got into one argument with him about cars -- he believes cars should be as fast as possible; he believes that he should be allowed to pay only one lot of road tax for 2 cars; he also believes that the size/power of the car has no effect on the cost of insurance) and when he's not shouting about how big his cock^H^H^H^Hcar is, he's quoting 20-page posts and only adding "ROTFPMSL!!!!" at the end. In other words, he's a wanker.
The problem is, I don't feel I can object on the group (and I certainly don't feel I can respond the way I want to, i.e. something along the lines of "fuck off, you top-posting wankfisted teenage sleazemonkey") without everybody else calling me a hypocrite, and/or telling me that if I can't take the good-natured banter I should get out of the group.
I don't like killfiling individuals but I suspect it's the only thing to do; but it makes me feel as though I've failed -- I don't want to react to something so stupid, something that basically amounts to a small boy sniggering at rude words. But I still feel uncomfortable with it.
Maybe I'm just overreacting.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-01 09:58 am (UTC)I hadn't thought of that, because it just doesn't seem to be the way misc works... I doubt if he'd take any notice, anyway; but maybe that's just me giving him a bad name and hanging him.
But surely someone who doesn't understand that the boundaries are different for strangers than they are for friends is fairly high on the fuckwittedness scale?
Well, I dunno. Not realising that the boundaries are different, maybe; but then it's harder to tell on news than IRL, I think, where you stand in relation to somebody -- whether you are considered a "friend" or not. Some people don't believe it's possible to be "friends" with somebody they've never met in real life; some people make friends quicker than others anyway, etc.
Are you on speaking terms with him now? I'd have thought that he'll have long since forgotten/forgiven that incident.
No idea -- he never said anything about it, it was the rest of them who had a go at me for it. I apologised to him, got no reply, he carried on posting without apparently being bothered, though he's been quieter recently (sufficiently far after the incident that I doubt it's connected). Still feel guilty, still feel certain that one miscreant (if not more) hates me as a result, but what more can I do than apologise & not do it again?
Even if you don't feel you can criticise his sexual banter, there's no reason not to put down his top posting/other breaches of netiquette.
Oh, I do that. I'm on much less shaky ground thinking that top-posters are evil, than thinking I have a right to tell people to stop talking about my knickers. That's usenet for you, though.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-01 11:22 am (UTC)I understand where you're coming from as OxIRC included similar banter and there was at least one regular that I'd have rather not had involved. I never found a way to prevent it. IT was a major case of whichever 'geek social fallacy' is it that says 'Thou Shalt Never Leave Anyone Out, Even If You All Dislike Them.'
If the killfile would help, I think you should use it. If there are reasons why that would not help, or would make you feel bad in other ways, then a message conveying the idea that, whoever else may make flirty/sexy/etc comments about you, He May Not, might work.
I hope you get it sorted in a way that makes you comfortable. You don't have to put up with it.