Pastime or Habit?

I have this habit, or pastime, of challenging people.

No one ever loves me enough, so then I have to stretch their limits....how far will you go to hang out with me? To like me? To tolerate me?

What's odd is that I find that bar is surpisingly low. It could be my sense of humor, or it could just be the internet. I recently made a comment on a friend's blog that was meant as purely sarcastic, but I don't think that it really came across that way. I didn't mean it to sound snipy, but I did mean it as a "of course you're part of the human race, um, that's how we all feel at times, it's not that unusal" kind of thing, other than the way it sounded: "uh, asshole, yeah, you and what army?" kind of way. And now I feel bad. I didn't mean it in a horrible way, and I hope she understands that, so not in the "Letters to AssHat" kind of way, but in the snarky, "what the fuck do you think my blog is about, anyway?" kind of way. There's a difference, at least to me. But I do understand, and given the people that she's been about lately, I can see how that would be very misinterpreted. Or maybe I'm the asshole, in not thinking that she would know and the response equally snarky. But that's the whole fucking problem with the internets; what's the snark/snark, what's serious? Sarcasm, especially the brand of sarcasm that some of us are soooo fond of, does not play well in the realm of just words. If we are who we are by words, then we are all such a sorry bunch. Because it's not so much the words, as it is the tone. And it's really, really hard to convey the tone....

Because I'm constantly on the edge of a forest fire, knowing that I could put it out, but also knowing that sometimes it is beneficial to let it burn, to use an analogy.....