thedoc wrote:Immanuel Can wrote:
My counsel is this: "Abstain from the indiscriminate dispersal of nacreous spheroids in porcine precincts."
That's easy for you to say, but difficult for me to do.
Yeah, he's counting on that.
He tries to find the point at which you'll feel tender, and then he pokes it furiously to make you jump. He doesn't actually care what you say...at least, not much. The anger, the bitterness, the spite, the rudeness...they're all just really cries of "Notice me, notice me." And sadly, it seems that using vitriol and obscenity is the only way he can imagine to get anyone to talk to him at all.
When I had the chance, I talked with him privately, with no audience to increase the perceived stakes for him. I tried to convince him he was capable of better: that his ideas could have merit, that he could be a reasonable person, and that as often as he was, he could see that people would actually listen to him. I tried to suggest that he would actually get more if he was fair and polite. Alas, he just bit the hand that was trying to feed him (not that it hurt much -- he has no teeth
). So I used the viciously-gummed extremity to wave goodbye to him, and left it at that.
You can go to battle with him, but If you do, you get more of the same, because by doing so you will give him exactly what he is craving. (If you doubt me, just check back in any strand in which he's participated, and just watch how he "ups the ante" the minute someone tries to pull away from him: he's attention-starved, and has no idea how to get more of it except by being abusive.)
It's a cliche, but in this case I think "Starve the troll" is the relevant axiom. Maybe one day he'll come around: but until he does, I'd just leave him alone.