With no ill intent

You know that little list that goes around on e-mail every so often of the things that men wished that women knew? My favorite has always been "If I say something that could be taken two ways and one of those ways hurts your feelings or upsets you, I meant the other."

Well, a blog is basically just a whole world of things that can be taken more than one way. I've been pretty lucky (knock lots of wood) and so far no one (that I know of) has been mortally offended by something I never intended to be unkind and only one person (that I know of) was put out by ditto.

I know that in my casual conversation-o there are things that I find hilarious that others don't. Lord knows I've managed to upset people just by running my mouth because when one considers how much sheer output there is, it would be a miracle - and would defy all known laws of probability - if none of it were stupid or thoughtless.

A couple of weeks ago David blogged about Shauna's running afoul of this. Now, admittedly, I tend to gather up lots of sarcastic folks and the mean sense of humor isn't unknown in my crowd, but it would hard to find a kinder-hearted person of good will than Shauna. Nonetheless, some of the parents of her students were upset. (Re-reading this paragraph, I mean that she ran afoul of someone taking something the wrong way, not that she wrote something stupid or thoughtless. Just clarifying.)

I've been thinking about that lately because when one first starts blogging, one is pretty much talking to oneself. But eventually people start to find one. (I love the non-specific third person.) One's friends check in every so often, along with the occasional relative. Every post is a new opportunity to be misunderstood or (probably in my case) say something dumb.

I love it when people read what I write and I hate upsetting people. And I write a lot here about people I like. (If I've written about someone, I like them.) And there are more people I like that I haven't written about yet. In general I follow one of Brett's rules: treat the folks you don't like politely and treat your friends with genial, well-meant, abuse. Only make fun of the folks you want making fun of you. And - of course - retaliate and escalate. Craig and I have reached such a level with this that for a while Sheilah thought we hated each other.

So, dear friends, casual readers, strangers stopping in, if I ever write something that upsets or offends you, I mean it the other way. I really, really do.