Indeed, why post and never even lurk for any response?
Just to vent, I suppose. And for attention, naturally.
Nevertheless, isn't it irksome to have one's time so flagrantly time wasted? After all, if they want attention to their sorrows, then how is it fair first to illicit response and then, quite literally, to pay no attention in kind? It all does seem rather cyberMunchausen. Or else, alas, some may actually be in such suffering that they are no longer sufficiently coherent and organized or just don't care to sustain any sensible dialogue.
But aside from the hit and run lamentations, what else is on offer, and of what quality is the discourse?
There is a lot of encounter group style SHARING, commiseration, consensual validation, even outright pity parties and at very worst, existential validation for irresponsible and self defeating behavior patterns.
Also, there is advice and encouragement, often somewhat simplistic and half cocked. And the approach to making friends and social integration tends to be arbitrary and procedural. There is no attempt first to understand what different people are missing, and then to strategize, any more than there might be cross questioning first to discover what people might have already tried, their experiences, the results they got, and why so.
So perhaps the hit and run posters just don't expect much more than to get anything off their chests, and that's why they don't linger thereafter.
Ny question is: Can't we all try and do any better?
