To Those Who Know What I'm Talking About

Late last night I commented on a thread that I didn’t read thoroughly and didn’t get what was going on except for the opening post. I replied to that. When I looked this morning, someone had replied to me. I thought that person was accusing me of making up a story to illustrate a point, and I felt compelled to respond but couldn’t because the thread had been locked. So I started a thread to reply to that person, but it was apparently taken as a flame war—which it was, sort of—and lasted about 60 seconds. So I PMed the person.

In the ensuing exchange, I realized I had misinterpreted the response to my comments. The responder apparently made a faulty assumption that I knew what was going on in the thread, when I had no idea and assumed—as I often do—that it was all about me.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t ask. To those who do know what I’m talking about, I want to say I didn’t intend to suggest that anyone—not even a nameless stranger, but certainly not another member of this forum—might bear any resemblance to the, uh, person in my story.

If my point was unclear, it’s because I didn’t try to make one. If I had, it would have been something along the lines of, “Hey, it could be a lot worse. Oh, and here’s a coincidence.” Now that I know what was going on I can see how a lot of people might have thought I was making a more specific point. Apologies to anyone who was offended. I was clueless.

And now I’m sure a lot of other people are, too. What can I say but welcome to my world.

That's completely normal.

I'm sure it will help clear things up.

and if it doesn't, it helps to restore my belief in things being about me.