(In my spare time I write fan-fic, and have just posted one based on a popular RPG title. Someone on the forum sends me a private message with their thoughts.)

User: “Your story has way too upbeat of an ending! [Game] is meant to be about death, suffering, and tragedy, and the PC is meant to die at the end having accepted their situation is completely hopeless!”

Me: “My story is based on the third ending to the game. You’re thinking of the first ending.”

User: “There’s more than one ending?”

Me: “Yep, it takes a lot of work but if you do the following—” *I describe how to unlock the other endings of the game, including the one where the main character lives and departs with the promise of a relatively happy life afterwards*

User: “Well, I haven’t played the game, so I didn’t know that.”

Me: “There’s multiple Let’s Play videos and online walkthroughs detailing how each ending plays out, too.”

User: “Look, just change your fic so it’s not so cheerful, okay? Otherwise I’m going to down-vote it!”

(A while later I get the following on my personal email:)

User: “Hey, why did you block me on the forum? I told you what you needed to do to make your fic decent and you still haven’t changed it yet! Don’t you care about being faithful to the game?”

(A few online friends and I get together once a week over Skype to play Dungeons and Dragons. For the most part it goes smoothly, but there’s been a little bit of irritation building up behind the scenes, and since I’m the Dungeon Master of the group, I ask about it.)

Me: “Hey, guys, I noticed when I give out the rewards every week everyone seems kind of upset. What’s going on?”

Friend #1: “Well, it’s just — it takes us, like, a month and a half to level up, or to get anything worthwhile.”

Friend #2: “Yeah, I don’t get why you’re so stingy with everything! This module said we should get through it in, like, just a few sessions!”

Me: “Well, remember when we started, and our sessions were about five to six hours long, and everyone was really focused, and we rampaged through content?”

Friend #1: “Yeah, that was great!”

Me: “And you know how, over time, we now have between two and three hours per session, with maybe half of it cut away because you guys constantly stop to chat about OOC stuff and then get mad at me when I try to bring the focus back to the game?”

Friend #2: “Um…”

Me: “And how I asked you guys to pay a little more attention, because one fight, that should have been over in a round and taken ten minutes, ended up taking over an hour because everyone spent ten or more minutes on their turn umming and uhhing because they didn’t listen to what other people were doing and weren’t watching the [virtual tabletop] to see what moved where?”

Friend #3: “So can’t you, like… adjust the XP we get per fight?”

Me: *getting an outright slasher smile* “SURE! You guys ready to fight four encounters at once!?”

(They started to focus a bit better after that, and stopped coming late and leaving early and then complaining about how little we did.)

(My friend is American and lives in Seattle. I’m Irish. Two conversations we have had are below:)

Conversation #1:

Me: “I’m coming to America and I’m going to visit you! I’ll be in New York on [Date] so which suits you better, before or after?”

Friend: “Erm, you know Seattle is nowhere near New York, right?”

Me: “Oh, I’ll fly! Don’t worry I’m not planning on taking a train!” *laughs* “I can just get an internal flight, right? What is it, an hour or two?”

Friend: “More like five or six.”

Me: “Bloody h***!”

(I flew overnight and slept on the plane.)

Conversation #2:

Friend: “We don’t know which family to go to for [Daughter]’s first Christmas. My family is in Wisconsin but [Husband] is from [Other State].”

Me: “Why don’t you spend Christmas Day with your family and then go to his on Stephen’s Day? We used to drive to visit family all the time the day after Christmas. Or better yet, stay at home and go visiting the few days after.”

Friend: “Um… America is big.”

(I admin a closed Facebook group with around 5000 members: local area in Brooklyn, New York, only. A woman recently joins; she is running for state assembly. Her first day in the group she posts a link to her campaign, and from then onwards every day for five days posts three or four times. I delete most of the posts and ask her simply to “keep it to a minimum.”)

Woman: “I feel like you are racially profiling me. Do you ask white members to limit their posts? Why are you picking on me? What’s you point? You publicly humiliated me and let folks know you are the all powerful slave master keeping check on me, taking away my posts, and telling me what I can’t do. Am I hurting anyone or did any of my posts cause injury or harm? I am updating the community about my candidacy. I know many of the group members here. I also know you removed me from the group once before; are you gonna continue to harass me? Are you gonna continue to censor me? Is this really America? I can’t even believe I am having this conversation with you!”

(This is how she reacts to being asked not to spam…)

(I know the owner of a cleaning supplies company whom I see every week at a networking group. One day, I place an order on his website for some toilet roll and a few other cleaning bits and bobs. I realise shortly after that I put the wrong delivery address (the address I put is outside his area of delivery) so I email him to let him know. I don’t hear back. A few days later I see him.)

Me: “Hi, [Owner]. I put an order through on your website, but I put the wrong address. I emailed you. Did you see it?”

Owner: “Oh, no, my email’s been down. Email me your details and I’ll sort it out.”

(I resend the email. When I see him the next week…)

Me: “Hey, did you get that email I sent you about my order?”

Owner: “I’ve just got a new secretary and I’m training her to deal with my emails. She mustn’t have got to that one yet. Write it down for me now.”

(I do so. The next week…)

Me: “Hi, [Owner], I still haven’t heard from you regarding my order…”

Owner: “My new secretary is s***. Sorry, send me another email, this time on [new email address]. I’ll sort it out.”

(This continues for about two months. Eventually I ask for my money back.)

Me: “Look, it’s been a while. I’ve bought some toilet roll. Can I just have my money back? I paid Paypal.”

Owner: “Sure, I’ll just reverse the transaction.”

(Lo and behold… next week…)

Me: “Hey, I haven’t got my refund yet.”

Owner: “Oh, yeah. How much was it again?”

Me: “About £30.”

Owner: “I’ll bring cash next week.”

(It took three more weeks for me to get my money back.)