On context of statements made online

First, thanks for the flood of comments I have been getting from everyone over the flood of posts I have been making lately. It's been great hearing from people.

But some of the posts made me realize something about text communication; context can really be lost. For instance, if you read all the comments about me mentioning my current dating situation it kind of sounds like I conquered something, that a conquest is over. That doesn't reflect well upon me. =)

Now I know no one meant for their comments to sound like that, but when you read them it does not come off as "congratulations, Brett, on meeting someone and being happy" but more as "good work, Brett, on finally snapping the dating dry spell!". Obviously the former sounds better than the latter. =)

And it makes a good point about context. How often do we actually think about how what we say could be perceived by someone who does not know us personally when done in a public forum such as this? I learned early on when I first got ichat back in the day (Bryan is the only person who reads this that knows of those times) that, for instance, my sarcastic humor does not translate well to text. Without knowing me and thus having a context of how I tend to talk, it just comes off as abrasive and rude. That's why I tend to go overboard with the emoticons; I don't want my text to be read incorrectly. I have had to explain myself a few too many times to find it in any way enjoyable. =)

Anyway, random thought at the moment.