Pyraxis, when I posted about being kind and helpful, I was thinking about
THIS, but while we're on the subject.... Could there possibly
be a worse place to assess someone's sincerity, or lack of it, than an Internet forum? Here I am, "talking" with a whole pile of people I don't know from a bar of soap. For all I know, I could be passing any of you in the street without a second look. Some of those who post on the same sites I do seem nice, some of you don't. But what is almost a dead certainty is that no-one here, if I were to meet you face-to-face, will resemble his or her Internet persona exactly. In fact, I'd wager that there are some who are quite unlike their online selves; I'm probably a good example of that myself.
I come here and offer my observations and experiences, and sometimes I give advice (usually solicited, sometimes not). I do so as an act of faith that not all the personalities I see online are the fabrications of crazy or criminal minds. Making an effort to appear pleasant in discussion forums need not be a cover for anything more sinister. Indeed, for the less socially-able among us, this might be all the human contact we have.
