Originally Posted by Trollheart

I'm not saying I didn't overreact but it was uncalled for and completey disproportionate. He doesn't like my joke, he says **** you but he has no need nor right to bring Karen into it, for no reason. Obviously he didn't actually mean it, I know that, but it's a horrible, hurtful thing to say, even in jest.

The core issue - and it should be the only one - here is that regardless of any previous behaviour, perceived permission, relationships etc, when someone tells you you've gone too far that should be it: no excuses, no complaints, no blaming the other party for "letting you do it", no attempts to justify their behaviour. It. Should. Stop. Immediately.

There can be no other argument. You go too far, you shut the **** up and back off. You don't, you're in trouble. And in the wrong.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.