Paladin, you need to understand something that Jeff has already shown an appreciation of. That being that different cultures have different customs.

Generally,In Australia, when a person that you consider to be a friend stops insulting you, wether it be to highlight how bald you are, how fat you look, how your shirt makes you look like Liberace ( is that how you spell his name?, you know, the queer piano player), or to even question wether your parent were ever married, you know that there are problems with your friendship.

Your tone of voice and body language is a big factor wether or not you recieve a friendly jibe in return, or a punch in the nose.

This gets back to my original point that email communication is a much less forgiving form of communication that face to face interaction.

Fundy