Mr. Ark,Mr. Arkadin wrote:I want to be able to speak on things and not hide my feelings (otherwise what's the point of being here?), but at the same time it's difficult to do that in printed word as many things can be misinterpeted. Smilies help, but they cannot convey the thoughts behind words as well as face to face talk.
Exactly something of sorts happened to me in 2003 when I over-enthusiastically joined for the first time the TCM Boards. I remember I was playing a Trivia game where someone gave 21 clues so the players could guess a film and a couple of posts of mine were misunderstood by two lady posters, who thought I was mistreating them -no intention at all on my part. Later, we made up and one of those ladies (who's my mother's age) ended being a very dear pen-pal (or should I say e-mail-pal?) of mine.
I remember being very frustrated by the way she took my posts and the reason is just as you state it: "printed words can be misinterpreted" (thus one has to be extremely careful) and we cannot completely "convey the thoughts behind words as well as face to face talk".