I've been avoiding this thread, I'm so uncomfortable with conflict, whether online or FTF, that it actually makes me nauseous to have to deal with it. I'm hyper-sensitive, and know that about myself, so know to watch that I don't infuse other people's words with my own insecurities or skewed perspectives. Sometimes I have to leave a discussion to mull it over from different angles, usually trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the other person (though sometimes that ends up being to my own detriment). There have been a few times when a poster's comments have taken my breath away, and I've had to check with someone else to see if that's really what they were saying or if it was just me coloring their intent with my own faulty interpretation. Again, I just often have to shrug my shoulders and just swallow down the perceived hurt and give the other person the benefit of the doubt, for the sake of the community and because at heart, I prefer to nurture peace than conflict.

What might be difficult for some people to understand is that for some of us, right or wrong, this community IS our world. I'm housebound because of anxiety, which hopefully will eventually change. But for now, this community IS my lifeline to the outside world. I have no friends outside of here. That reality snuck up on me, and that too has to change, but for now, that's just how it is. This community has helped in more ways than I can elaborate here. But it is so vital to me, again, right or wrong, that if something is said here that makes me feel ostracized or attacked, it has the power to incapacitate me with grief. Poor Dotsie has had to deal with my angst over that a couple of times in the past, but with her help, I've just decided to trust that nobody here ever means great harm to anyone else, and if they do, then that will be noticed by others beside me and will be addressed. I cannot decide on my own, because I'm flawed by my own insecurity and angst, whether a post is or isn't truly mean-spirited.

So I think that the perception of conflict is often very subjective, depending on another person's sensitivities, moods, and however the written (or spoken in FTF) words/ideas impact them on their way through each person's inner translation process.