Originally Posted by trapin

Tone inflection has a lot to do with it. Sometimes the way you say something could be taken as a belligerent comment when you were only trying to be funny. It may not have been a tasteful joke, but you certainly didn't mean any harm by it. But how are they to know? One often needs to remind oneself that just because you've had correspondence with someone on a message board for a couple of years doesn't mean you actually KNOW that person. Until you've met face to face a few times, you are still only an acquaintance. So you have to be careful what you joke about or how you respond to certain things. Believe me; I've learned my lesson about this more than a few times. Over a year ago I made a joke about Charlie's wealth on a different Message Board and he took genuine offense to it (something about the rich getting richer or something like that). It was probably not a wise joke to make towards someone that I don't know personally. I truly meant no harm and thought he'd get a chuckle from the comment but how was he to know that I was joking? If it had been a close friend of his maybe he would have blown it off but coming from some guy that he only knows as a username on a Message Board, he has to question it. I don't blame him for getting miffed at it. In retrospect, I probably would have reacted the same way.

I'm sure John's a good guy and I'm not going to let one comment sink him in my opinion. A review of his post before hitting 'submit' may have seen the term 'ugly baby' removed before the post even made it into the thread...then we wouldn't even be talking about this. Give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he's learned from this as we all have.

Originally Posted by camcojb

Tony,

I'm a good friend of Charleys and he still calls me a "jackass"!!! :D

Jody