"I just won't say anything."

[Botchmun]

This site. Seriously I wind up checking my self a lot whenever I browse threads. You have no idea.

[noxious.sunshine]

There's been many times I've bitten my tongue.. Including here on this forum..

[Loony BoB]

People consider me to be rather blunt and rather open. And that's when I'm biting my tongue and opting to keep things to myself a lot. God knows how people would react if I said what was on my mind all the time. I imagine that goes for the majority of people out there, though...

[Shlup]

I really need to just block my dad on Facebook. And my [bad] sister.

[Parker]

I try to avoid discussion with anyone about anything anymore.

[Calliope]

I really don't think people care too much whether I say what's on my mind or not, it hasn't really made much of a difference.

[Ashi]

Yeah I do this online a lot.

In real life I had this friend that would bring up a topic that made me extremely uncomfortable. A topic that I didn't agree with and had a lot of objections to. This friend noticed that I just wasn't commenting on it, or saying anything about it and kept trying to get me to tell her what I thought when I was just trying to be neutral. She probably knew on some level what my feelings were. I felt I had to be guarded with this person because the topic itself was trouble IMO. Then once, I did give her an opinion. Well, not an opinion but spoke about something related to that topic (after she had brought it up) and it kind of reached a point of no return from there.

Anyway, she turned completely ugly and I couldn't handle interactions with her anymore. She harassed me to no end over it. Now we don't even speak. I wish I had never said anything and just cut ties with her from the very beginning!

I guess what I learned is always go with your gut. If you feel you shouldn't say anything then don't! (probably will get a lot of disagreement on this but oh well).

[Ghosteses]

i guess everyone or almost everyone kind of does it sometimes. even about small things. i know i do it. it is mostly if it bugs me or if i feel like pointing out how dumb someone is being and i take it back because i do not know if it will do any good or i do not want to start more drama xD

[The Man]

Yeah, I avoid getting into political arguments on Facebook ever because if I did so I'd never do anything else. Sometimes I get bored of arguments in EoEO when it becomes obvious no one's going to convince anyone of anything too, although this is much rarer.

[Unbreakable Will]

I tend to speak my mind these days, but in the past I was constantly biting my tongue. I come from a Southern Baptist family/area and in the last three years I've been on the road to deconversion, I'm now an atheist, so for a while I was constantly at odds with their posts/conversations and never said anything. Now I take pleasure in challenging their beliefs and getting them to think for themselves instead of tediously quoting and defending bible verse.

[Cuchulainn]

The amount of people here that hate me and the amount of times I've been banned should be testament enough that that is an exercise in tact that I should seriously consider learning.

[LunarWeaver]

I used to hop into the fray now and then. I learned to pick my battles eventually, but that gets tiresome too. These days the most serious I get is about trout that doesn't matter. I don't have time to argue about smurfing Jesus all day. I have this forum to go to and this post to write. I'm busy.

[Jiro]

I bite my tongue a lot because it's pointless but drama and I are never too far apart

[Lonely Paper Star]

All the time in various places.

[Cloudane]

Definitely on Facebook. I've not had any FB dramas (*touch wood*) and would rather keep it that way. It's too public for that sort of thing, with everyone from friends to family to colleagues on there, it would be way too undignified to have an argument on it. It's pretty much like arguing on stage as everyone you know watches.

Forums are a different matter. I get the "itch" when someone is spouting BS. I'm trying to get better at avoiding it though, as it's just a massive waste of time that only makes me feel bad - people tend to be absolutely 110% firm on their opinions and really good at debates, and even if I know someone is objectively wrong about something they always seem really good at persisting with their side and twisting the facts to work for them. People are so persistent they'll go back on forth on a subject until the end of time, so I just give up and "lose". I'd rather just not say anything.

And yeah, I've got the usual issue with people IRL mocking other sexualities, transexuals, religious people etc (I'm friends with people who fit into all those categories). Not hating them necessarily, just using them as targets for humour. E.g. recently there were some guys on TV wearing pink (for a charity I think) and people were all "lol, what the heck are they wearing, they look like a pair of gays". And apart from thinking 'it's 2014 and people are still giggling about homosexuality and implying it's undesirable?' I also can't stand the notion that a colour should be banned for a gender, and keep hoping people would know better after seeing me sharing pretty pink ponies on FB.
One part of me wants to speak up and stand up for my friends in that situation, bute the dominant part of me just can't bear confrontation and also doesn't want to be the Mr Serious spoiling everyone's fun. At the end of the day if it's only meant in humour I understand that we all need to have a laugh about ourselves I suppose, it just grates on me sometimes.

I think the hardest I had to bite my tongue was the father of one of my friends (ex Navy so you can see where this is going) ending up on the subject of transexuals and saying along the lines of "if you were born a man then you're a man and should use the men's toilets, it's creepy to be invading the women's". HNNNNNNNNNG..... I just don't want to fall out with people who are 99% of the time very nice people and let it slide as he's of an older generation.


E: Isn't that typical, I wrote a textwall explaining my thoughts then clicked onto the homo thread and saw a perfect tl;dr summary (posted by @Fonzie) of what I was trying to say about arguing on forums:

Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience