Dear Amritsar,
I'm a lepidopterist. No, that doesn't mean that I skip the line when adopting a child - where would you even get that idea?
I decided to become a lepidopterist when I was eight years old - I thought it meant somebody who studies leopards. (Where would I even get that idea? I don't know.) I didn't find out the truth until my second year of college, but, by then, I was committed to Zeugloptera (my specialty). I had always considered the study of butterflies to be...sedate, bordering on catatonic, which, admittedly, suited my temperament to a tee, a bland, beige tee without a witty message or corporate logo.
Then, KurokopteryxKillah001 appeared.
From the beginning, KurokopteryxKillah001's posts to Wings of Desire, a lepidopteral message board and soup bar, were confrontational. "You think you know the migration patterns of paramartyria immaculatella? You don't know flit!" he wrote. I thought that was unnecessarily harsh, but it was only the beginning.
KurokopteryxKillah001 accused some lepidopterists of using our interest to avoid dealing with other actual human beings. Fair enough. Honest lepidopterists can agree to disagree on this point, although I do believe that people would be easier to deal with if they had had the grace to evolve wings. "Are you really 87," KurokopteryxKillah001 once wrote about Killian McRatt, "or did chasing all around the Asutralian outback looking for tasmantrix nigrocornis age you prematurely?!!! LOL!" That was uncalled for - McRatt is one of the sweetest men to ever put pin to moth! Once, when he was mildly challenged, KurokopteryxKillah001 replied, "That's the problem with you butterfly bozos! You think it's my way or the sabatinca heighwayi!"
Lepidopterist trolls are the worst.
Then, for some reason, KurokopteryxKillah001zeroes in on me. Me! All I ever wanted to do was share the joy of studying my beloved epimartyria bimaculella - could there be any more innocent pursuit? KurokopteryxKillah001 made fun of my bowtie, my netting skills and my speling. His condemnations became increasingly sharp and unpleasant.
I must deal with this lepidopteral loon, but how best to do so? Should I ignore the troll and hope that he dies a horrible death? Or, should I engage with him, making mockery of his posts in order to defang his poisonous...umm, teeth?
H0wdy in the D00dy
Hey, Babe,
Both courses of action have their advantages. And, disadvantages. And, multi-coloured neon signs (advertising, alas, being ubiquitous in the modern eschatological urban landscape).
There's an old saying: Don't ever wrestle with a pig because dirt. The wisdom of this is so obvious, I'm surprised it isn't a t-shirt yet. The odds of your troll actually dying within the next three months are 537 to one according to Circus Circus and 562 to one according to the Luxor, though, so I wouldn't count on that happening if I were you. You have a better chance of the troll getting bored and moving on, although it's hard to imagine what would bore somebody who trolls a message board about butterflies and moths.
You are right, trolls have a hard time with people who laugh at them; a humorous zinger applied at just the right time may well solve your problem. However, is somebody who gets excited about spending a day in a boggy marsh in hopes of seeing a rare insect likely to be able to zing properly? I have my doubts, frankly, that you have sufficient zing within you.
Having weighed the options carefully, I believe that your best course of action is
[Whoa, hold it right there, Missy! Do you not see what H0wdy D00d00 has done? By repeating his claims in your column, he's shifted the troll's focus from him to us! I swear, ferk it, it's things like this that make me want to fund research that would create an app that would allow us to reach through the Internet and slap people at their computers!
[Mister The Troll, sir, on behalf of the Alternate Reality News Service, I would like to make clear that we have nothing to do with butterflies, moths or the people who worship them. Please don't hurt us. Brenda Brundtland-Govanni, Editrix-in-Chief, Alternate Reality News Service]
Oh.
Well.
That.
I suspect ignoring your troll is no longer an option. Good luck.
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: You don't understand why your girlfriend didn't take "I saw a woman who looked just like you on Stripper Cams Central!" as the compliment you had intended? Oh, brother, I could write a book. And, when I do, please read it. Women everywhere will thank you.