The value of trolling

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When I troll I feel kind of emotionally detached from the words I write. I usually troll because I like entertaining myself and playing with other people's emotions.

I think some other trolls troll for the same reason. I also troll so I can get practice dealing with a**holes. I usually voice my strongest opinions and see how people react. Usually people react in an exaggerated fashion.

Since I'm slightly detached their hurtful comments don't hurt nearly as much. I can think of good comebacks and test what works and what doesn't.

I think trolling has actually helped my social skills. After I troll I often think of more polite and socially acceptable ways of saying the same thing.

Do you troll on WP? It's really hard for me to tell if someone is trolling or not unless it is blatantly stupidly obvious. Can you let me know when you are if you do? When people play with my emotions it can be very taxing and exhausting and can drain me emotionally and take lots of energy from me. And I am going through a lot emotionally right now so if you do troll please let me know. When I read and post on threads I actually do so just like I would if I was talking to the people directly. There is no difference for me, I don't know how to separate myself to make that different from a regular real life conversation. I don't mind you trolling if it helps you but I would prefer to have the choice to not get emotionally involved in a thread if someone is just trolling. So if you can let me know then I can know not to read those threads. I like being supportive of you and helping you if I can and being a friend to people on WP but I can't afford the emotional exhaustion of someone playing with my emotions just for the sake of doing that.

I try not to troll on WP. The most I do on WP is post my slightly controversial thoughts. Trolling has actually helped me mature as a person, get along better with people and communicate way better.
Before I trolled on the internet I was a real life troll. Another thing is that my communication style can look very trollish to a lot of people. I like to troll because it helps me understand the other point of view better.

I can later think of ways of communicating my point of view and satisfying that point of view without seeming wishy-washy.

I'm going to have to agree with skibum, who really put it better then I could. Personally, I could probably tell between trolling and a serious post. For some reason I have this ability to do so with reading as opposed to in person.

With that said, I can think back to times at work where I was taken advantage of and I was utterly clueless. I actually had to look back and process the information over the course of years to figure it out. You have to understand, this type of reevaluation and realization takes what were sometimes positive memories and makes them negative. All of a sudden, when I recall a memory and hear the voice of the person speaking, they take on a more malicious tone.

We get lied at so often in our real lives, and we can't even recognize it. Folks can piss on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain, and we'll STILL think its rain. Why should we need to come to a place like this where we expect to have a safe haven only to find the same thing?

I'm not saying your doing that, but just give it some thought.

I usually try to keep most of my trolling confined to websites like yahoo answers or reddit. Basically websites that are full of trolling already. I really like trolling because it teaches me how to keep people engaged, how to say my message loud and clear and how to not hurt people's feelings. I'll tell you an example.

Earlier today I complained on reddit about all my okcupid matches being boring and ugly. I knew that would get bad responses. I later thought of a better way to say that.

I tend to fall for people as I get to know them and I rarely feel attracted to photographs of people. Everyone including me has a hard time writing about themselves.

Since I can't tell what type of person someone is based on their profile, not very many people stand out to me. This frustrates me.

Another thing that frustrates me are people who are only looking for dating and sex. I want to be able to be friends with someone to take the pressure off of me to become attracted to them.

I sometimes notice people who have common interests with me. I could become friends with them, but their photos don't do anything for me. They could end up looking way better in person or have really good chemistry with me, but I often hesitate to contact them because they're only looking for dating.

I have a narrow definition of trolling (surprise, surprise), and that's purposefully being a jerk just for the fun of it, with the intent to agitate people.

I don't see any value in that.

Skibum raises a good point though. This forum should be a safe haven for all of us, so I think I'd be disappointed to have a member troll others here.

I troll on Youtube alot out of boredome and sometimes I get into mischief here on WP but its usually out of jokery and fun.

Why troll, when there are real issues to discuss?

I'm sure there are better ways to learn social skills and become mature without toying with peoples emotions.

I get it. It's a young person thing. I used to do it but then realised it wasn't in my nature to be a complete a**hole. Plus it was a waste of time.

I like toying with trolls though. Staying completely calm and not falling into one of their traps. The trick is to stop thinking of them as human beings. Or rather, realise you won't be able to have a rational conversation with them, so you ignore them or feed them as much junk they are feeding you.

Trolls have helped me learn a lot about human behaviour though. They've made me be wary when making new friends especially with young people and not open up with people straight away, or ever. They've made me avoid large bodies of the internet and try my best to be content with being alone because my interests usually attract most a**holes, aka the most threats made to women happen in comic book communities.

Just remember that you're insulting real people, and if you don't feel anything for them then I don't see why I should treat you any better.

And yes, I realise there are two types of trolls: those who just say a bunch of dumb sh** and those who make threats. My friends (from very long ago) used to defend their behaviour by saying the latter was bullying, but it's all bulling to me. And I'm so glad I no longer have people like that in my life.

I see no value in trolling, it is pointless waste of many people's time and it can cause upset and distress to many people

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Most of my trolling is like this. http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comment ... nd_boring/
I never insult anyone unless they insult me.

Trolling on this site (in the accepted sense of the word) is a sure fire way of getting banned from the site.

I don't really get the concept of trolling. I hear about it a lot, but don't really get it. I mean like on another forum someone was asking what character you fantasize over. I knew the thread was going to get locked because it was off topic, so I wrote "Shreck" as a joke. Which I guess might be trolling in a way. But that's the only kind I can think of that I would ever come up with. I probably miss any clever trolls I read. I do sometimes read an OP and have no idea what the person is getting at, so those might be trolls, which are wasted on me. I could spot something obvious if someone posted something like "all autistic people need a lobotomy". Or at least recognize it as stupid and not worth a reply.