[Mister Bent]

Originally Posted by Medusa

I still think about the phrase that Phyllis used that day at the bbq restraunt. "Get down to the bone".
We got down to the bone with each other that day. We cast aside dainty forks and frilly overtures and we gnawed on each other's lives and smeared the sauce around for good measure. It was one of my most satisfying meals ever.

Now, for me, 'getting down to the bone' signifies a hundred different things...but it always manifests itself the same way. It comes from frustration, from desire, from the part where I eschew common courtesies and bullshit niceties of this world and I grease my face up good on something yummy. Rarely am I dissappointed.

The whole damn story was beautifully told. Makes me want to meet Phyllis.

Particular to this site, and really any passionate engagement, the portion in bold speaks to a place I often find myself, and I imagine others do, as well. Frustration from being misunderstood, or from believing I have been misunderstood, wanting to reach through cyberspace to grab up someone and say, "Listen here!"

We try to redirect the conversations, to draw attention to what we're really trying to say, to what we feel is the meat on the bone, and we fail. Frustration grows as the desire is unfulfilled. We enter our own personal red zones. We want to pull the gloves off (eschewing common courtesies) and get dirty and bloody, but that seems to rarely work, either.

How can we apply the BBQ metaphor to heated dialogue in a way that doesn't lead to personal attacks, closed threads and hurt butts?