Belle wrote:Just wanted to apologize to anyone that I offended with my posts over there yesterday.
When I first read this, I had no clue what you might be talking about. I hadn't seen anything I'd noticed as being anything to even consider apologizing for. Then I went back and re-read the comment stream.
What you're dealing with, especially in comments to blogs and other articles, are people who like to build up their own (lack of) self-esteem by being snide and critical of others. It is really a bully mindset. They're also often people who have decided to make their great achievement to be the smartest person who comments to fill in the blank. They'd really like to be Rush Limbaugh and get paid well to be hyper-critical, rude and narrow-minded, but they'll settle for abusing others on comments.
I've been dealing with various Internet forums about a variety of topics since the early 90's, and have gotten so accustomed to it that I just ignore them instantly - that's why their rude responses to you didn't even register with me.
Thumper's comment is spot-on.
This is one of many reasons I enjoy a forum like this a lot more than many other Internet discussion areas - we do take the time to get to know one another, and we have moderators who keep things civil and the riff-raff out.
IMNSHO, you have nothing to aplogize for at all. In reality, they should be apologizing to you, but they're not civilized enough to do so.