Newly divorced woman flirting with much younger man

Of course. Like I said I see all of the sides of this (even though they wasn't my initial concern). But someone saying the same thing over and over again...not heartfelt. There are others who have disagreed with me on this post and were respectful in their use of words. Being nice is taken much better than being blatantly mean.

So posts in disagreement are fine as long as they aren't blatantly mean, I can see that. How do you decide which posts are mean? By the person repeating the same position over and over?

Yes and using words like "you don't want that", "don't do it", and talking about my kids like you know them. No one can predict the future so no one knows for sure how things will turn out. How about saying " I don't think that is a good idea because..." Or"this might affect your children because..."

So you can determine if someone is has mean intent if they word their advice is an aggressive tone? I'm not sure I see that. Could someone be of good intent but word their advice poorly?

An aggressive tone over and over again...I don't believe that's good intent.

But how do you know whether someone is of bad intent or passionate about their beliefs? I took a communications training class once and one thing that really stuck out for me is that if someone feels that their opinion is not being acknowledged (not agreed with, just acknowledged), they will keep repeating it over and over. I wouldn't want to say someone who was honestly trying to help was of bad intent, even if I thought their advice was not particularly helpful. Just about all of the posters who responded to you are regulars on A2K. I wouldn't want to brand someone an ass when they were honestly trying to help. So how can I know if they are being persistent because they feel strongly or if they are just an ass?

(This is an honest question and a point of discussion on the board. If you click on someone's name, you have the ability to "Ignore" them. Their threads will not appear on your screen, their posts will not appear when you pull up a thread (even though others will see them). There is a debate on whether you should ever ignore someone, forever insulating yourself from their opinions, whether you should just ignore the worst trolls or whether you should use it to your heart's content and just talk to people you mostly agree with.)

I think the problem for me was I asked for it to stop and it didn't. I didn't want it to keep going so that I could keep arguing. I even used the word please. I did not get that respect back.

So for you the indication of lack of good will was that they didn't end their participation on the thread when asked?

Yes and it kept getting more aggressive.

So that's a tough one. Threads on A2K (and the Internet in general) are not owned by the person who started the thread and often go in directions the original poster didn't intend. They also stick around forever, so someone is a similar situation may refer to it in the future. There are also multiple participants so is it fair to expect someone to drop a conversation where they are discussing something with several people because one person doesn't value their input? If everyone didn't value their opinion so it was one against many, would that imply bad intent if they continued to champion an out of favor position?

I believe so. If someone asked me to please stop, I would.

What if you were of good will and thought you were adding value to the thread (perhaps as a contrarian)? Would you really back off because someone didn't like your response? If you are truly of good will, are you being polite if you stop when asked or are you letting your opinion be silenced when you feel you have something to contribute?

It will be interesting to see how the others respond. The person who advised you to ignore another poster routinely berates other posters for not listening to opinions different than their own and that got me off on this tangent.

I would back off. But that's just me.

If someone was not so inclined to back off when asked, is that indicative of bad intent or maybe a different take on how to debate?

There are people of bad intent, especially on the political threads and those who while maybe of good intent are very combative. They often use harsh language when referring to those they disagree with. Is it ok for those people to silence those they disagree with? What if the more combative people started the thread? (This is not to discourage you from joining those threads!)

I wouldn't ask someone to back off for no reason. If this is how it is here, I can't even imagine the political threads. No thank you! I think it all goes back to this...my original question was barely answered and discussion about my morality was started when I didn't ask for it. I figured the person who started the thread should have some control but that obviously is not the case. Lesson learned!!! Now to jump into other people's threads and be the troll since I know it is acceptable...just kidding

If someone is being an asshole, the best thing to do in my opinion is simply stop responding to them.

Once you do that, their nastiness no longer matters. If you feel you need to further clarify your own opinion, do that past the bully as if they weren't there. There is no reason to engage with bullies.

So what makes it ok to advise a fellow poster to ignore someone is they are an asshole. I can see that. But can someone be an asshole and also advance a valuable opinion?

Ignoring someone (I mean simply not responding ... I am not talking about the button) is always a good option, and one not taken nearly enough.

In this case Neptune has made her point a long time ago, and now she is just being an asshole. I don't see any content to Neptune's posts for a long time, she is just insulting the OP and anyone else who is disagreeing with her. If Neptune says something interesting I might respond to her (although I have no obligation to do so).

I am simply suggesting to Angela to not get caught up in the nastiness of a mudslinging contest with Neptune.

There is never anything wrong with simply not responding.

Well, it might not make sense but there a few members who follow others around and negate certain members because of something as simple as personal animosity. This might be the reason someone is dumping on Neptune. I don't really know but I should offer a "Welcome to A2K to Angela" who joined on 5 Feb.

My personal take on the advice that Neptune offered was that she offered a conservative approach. I don't think she was aggressive, or mean....I think she was simply trying to offer some advice the OP hadn't thought of. I also don't think she was trumpeting morality, the OP obviously is attracted to this young man, Neptune was merely trying to tell her to be careful.