best at a distance

Many things we like "best" are best left at a distance, themilum [if we know what's good for us].

re "I will not post a sarcastic smiley"

I can count on one hand the number of times I have posted a "sarcastic smiley", themilum -- and that includes all the hands of all of my sock puppets, now long retired.

Oh what a tangled web we meet
When in a smiley we see deceit.

re "How can we be electronic friends if we go about being ever-so-nice to one another. We can't. If we did we would become phoney and what fun is that?"

So long as we keep speaking our own truths honestly, themilum, there is no danger that either of us will ever "become phoney" -- and no danger that anyone will confuse us as sock puppets either.

How could anyone be a "phoney" who speaks his truth, themilum?

Perhaps I can be forgiven for quoting my favorite passage from Hamlet on this one day of all days of the year:

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

The same oration also includes this advice from Polonius to his son, Laertes [which some find petty, though I do not]:

"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement."

Hamlet Act 1 Scene 3