Dear EVERYONE I've ever fought with, insulted or was sarcastic to online: How have you been? I want to tell you a secret. Well, it's not a secret exactly, but it's definitely something that up until now, I didn't really want you to know. Remember that time you said something to or about me and I shrugged it off with some condescending remark like "Sure thing, Pumpkin" or "You got it, Kiddo"? Maybe I even dabbed the beginning of my sentence with a snide, little "lol" or "haha" to show you how untouched I was by your comments. And if our communique took place long enough ago, I may have even hit you with a "You mad, bro?" before realising that the phrase had already become a tired cliche. The goal being to show you and any witnesses, that I cared so little about your words, I was sure to forget them moments after my cool, glib response. Well none of that was true. I'm not really cool, I'm almost never genuinely glib and I never actually call people condescending nicknames. And your comments? Well they totally did get to me. Sometimes for days or longer. Sometimes it was because you were smarter than me or had the moral high ground in our debates and sometimes you were just... louder. The crazy thing was that I often tried to expose how upset you were while simultaneously demonstrating my own emotional Teflon. Isn't that stupid? At the heart of  our battles, were subjects like gender equality, racism, politics, gun rights, religion or sometimes more personal topics like work, friendships and money. Sometimes I said things to you that were so damned clever and insightful that I just had to re-read it, imagining how you were going to feel as you faced the glare of my undeniable logic and quick wit. However, we both know that there were also times when I said the dumbest shit imaginable. Yikes. You may have been trying your damnedest to make me look and feel stupid, but nobody can do that to me better than I can. The point of this letter isn't to apologise or convince you of my own righteousness. Nor is it to declare that I'm somehow now above it all, as I'm sure we'll go at it again at some point. No, the point of this letter is to tell you that... well... you're okay. I don't mean that we're friends, far from it. I mean, sometimes you fling the most offensive, venomous hatred not just at me, but at huge groups of genuinely victimised people for "the lols". On the other hand, sometimes you're a reasonable person that sees the world very differently than I do. See, I love my wife (I'm going somewhere with this, hang tight). My wife is the most amazing person I've ever met. There is no league that contains her but if there were, I wouldn't be in it. She's awesome. Imagine Optimus Prime made of bacon and breakdancing for you on your birthday. She's that level of awesome. And see, here's the thing. You have stuff in common with her. Maybe it's something as vague as 'you both have opposable thumbs' or maybe your laugh sounds like hers. Whatever it is, you are in some way, just like the most amazing human being I've ever met or heard of. No matter how hateful or bat shit crazy the things you say are, no matter how terrible you make me feel by exposing my faults or proving me wrong, that's something that I'm always going to remember about you. Some part of you is 'bacon Optimus Prime' awesome. And I don't mean this in some spiritually over-decorated 'I have the higher ground' way, because if you look at all of our fights, I really don't. What I mean is that it's mathematically impossible for either of us to ever be completely horrible. As long as my wife, bacon and Optimus Prime are awesome, so are we. With respect, ~Tarol