When we write online no one can actually hear us talking. There are mostly suppositions being made in the conversation going back and forth online.
Because of this nuance people can take things the wrong way or be offended by a remark or a comment because the intent may not be clear.
- I do not determine whether I will be your friend or not based on one comment you make or one post you write.
- I do not determine whether I like you based on one thing that you say.
- I do not erase an entire respect feeling or trust based on one disagreement or to an opinion of the contrary.
However, at the same time, online communication can create great synergy, friendships and even courtships and marriages.
This is possible because many people will say online that which they will not say in person to one another.
For some people, the keyboard is a release like no other.
This is especially true for writers. Writers connect soul to soul through words on their heart going through their hands into their fingers and then on to the keyboad and into cyberspace.
This is why when you meet someone you became friends with online in person, you feel like you are meeting a long lost friend. There is an amazing energy that flows and connects you to each other. This is why people from all over the world can become friends with one another and form bonds of friendships that last forever.
Because of the very nature of this energy when someone is offended it may get internalized more deeply when it happens online.
When someone becomes offended because of a comment or a post online rarely was that the intention of the writer of that post or comment.
The best way to deal with this is to pick up the phone and call the person that you feel has offended you or hurt you. If that is too much for you to do, then a polite email will usually air out your differences and you will find out that the intent was not there to harm you or hurt you in any way.
When someone does something or says something that I find I may not understand I have found that giving them the benefit of the doubt goes a long way to healing and acceptance.
If someone has offended you they most likely do not even know they did so. This is not arrogant or rude. This is simply that the intent to hurt or harm was not there, therefore there is no signal to correct or make amends for something that did not exist in the first place.
The one thing that I learned the hard way is to bite my tongue and seek first to understand before I seek to be understood. So if I feel by someone's comment that they are taking me the wrong way, I can go first to them and ask them to forgive me for what I may have said that created this energy in the first place. Sometimes this will create the atmosphere to make amends and that usually results in a stronger relationship and bond that would not have existed without this circumstance.
All things can me made whole again and then some.
Copyright 2009 (c) By Katerina Gasset * All Rights Reserved* Do You Give Active Rain Members The Benefit Of The Doubt?
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