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In a post I wrote to someone who had gotten bent out of shape to one of your posts, long ago I stated, not in these words, that I was sure you were just "stirring the pot", having "fun".

Like I said, dad and granddad give me a different perspective. They thrived on verbal sparring... it really looked and felt like a huge "fight" to everyone else in wittiness. They preferred to have these "verbal sparring" matches with their brothers or other men and arranged these matches in person or by telephone weekly.

You and I know what they were doing. Most people do not. They were learning about themselves and more importantly the "opponent". There was a great deal of feigning, side stepping and moves to off topic... you name it, in order to dig deeper into the opponents head, what triggers or buttons they themselves and others had, and how to learn to better control them, both in oneself and the opponent. It is a great learning and teaching tool of our "pre-conditioned" responses to stimuli if understood.

As I said, I have a different perspective, but these things belong in the Debate Forums , if at all. In addition, I think the individual health condition and personality inferences are a BIG sore point with many people, especially those that take it seriously. Maybe a "skeptics" board would be more appropriate?

As in my reply to hopinso, I do not like to see these types of posts, from you or anyone else in the Support Forums , even if I do get healthy laughs and chuckles out of them. When misunderstood by the (unknowing?) sparring partner, they hurt. In my opinion, there is a very key component missing when verbal "sparring" occurs in writing that cannot be duplicated when on the phone or even better (best), in person.

In addition to my dad and granddad, these remind me of the old college debate classes... if you could get someone flustered enough (know and understand your own and opponents buttons\triggers and let them "think" they know yours) they literally fell apart. Tweet