一个有臭又长的回帖

Earlier I responded with “So?” hastily to your comments about being cynical and then left for work. In case you might be puzzled by that one-word response--I hate puzzling people, which is a poison in communication, I want to elaborate my point a little bit.

By the way, since you wrote your comments in English, I want to give my response in the same language just to be polite, and also give myself an excuse for using an easy way of typing. If you have read some early articles in my journal posted on this network, then you perhaps know that I have been insisting on writing in Chinese in this mainly Chinese online social network. 

Now, let’s see where we are in this conversation…Okay, I find it. When you claimed that “I am cynical” after my previous comments saying that the word “cynical’”in American culture today has more meanings than those in a dictionary, I am pretty sure you didn’t realize what I meant to say was that　“in that culture, the word ‘cynical’ carries, or is embedded with, a negative connotation of subtly referring to someone being a sour underachiever (I am reluctant to say the big ‘L’ word here) and/or a whiner.”  So, my advice on this matter is: Don’t say (acknowledge) “I am cynical” to any of your American colleagues.

Secondly, let me tell you--perhaps you have already figured out--why I planned to have this conversation between us dragging on for a little while. It was because I wanted to give you an opportunity to see what you were doing, and then to be able to have some meaningful reflection of what you were saying about why people didn’t mind to spend their precious life online chatting with others on one hand, and of what you were actually doing on the other hand. Now, tell me how would you describe our conversation so far? Does it have anything to do with what you said earlier in your article about “the middle age crisis”--either on your side or on mine? At least for the purpose of this comment, I must say neither of us belongs to the group of those “middle aged” people. Don’t you agree? We are, in fact, much younger.

To explain why we would start this conversation, or why we would have the conversation we had today, I would simply say that, two people--which happens to be a male and a female (it doesn’t have to be that way, though; the same conversation could have naturally taken place between two men without losing any quality--you could look at the joyful conversations I had in this network with other men), perhaps after a day of hard work, wanted to have a relaxing, refreshing, and hopefully delightful chat. It was just as simple as that. There was nothing to be ashamed of.