Holy cats, I see my own past experiences on another board in your comments above, beastie. Sometimes when you are engaged in the dance, you are completely unaware that you are one half of a two party exchange and continue on with your part.
I had a poster who attacked me on a regular basis. One episode lasted an entire year. It never occurred to me to withdraw from the exchanges, even when people told me that I should. So, I spent a full year (I'm not joking) responding. The exchanges themselves drove people away from the board and to this day I regret being too stubborn to realize or admit my part in it until long after when I got some perspective about the dynamic.
(Yes, I can go on for an entire year. Just a warning to the general public. ;-)
A whole year!!! Wow!!
I think many posters can relate to this. I know I can. ;) It is very difficult to "let go", particularly when you think you've made a legitimate point and the other individual responds in a sneering, dismissive manner, or outright distorts what you said in the first place. The natural instinct is to defend yourself, to clarify, to explain, to justify. But the cycle just continues, anyway, despite clarifications. At some point it becomes clear that the cycle is, in fact, the entire point, for some reason. And the other poster is likely seeing it in a different light altogether.
Long ago, when I was trying to "understand" my failed marriage, before I extricated myself from it, I read an extremely helpful book: The Verbally Abusive Relationship. The author explained that in certain relationships it is pointless to ask "why" a person does or says X, Y, or Z - because what they are saying or doing is actually peripheral to their real purpose. To figure out their "real purpose", you have to ask: what does the person
gain from this behavior? It's a slightly different focus. It immediately enabled me to "understand" my then husband's behavior when all my years of asking "why did he say or do X, Y, and Z" did not help at all. I immediately saw what he gained by this behavior, once I stopped trying to make sense of the details. And that helped me to see the pointlessness of trying to explain, to clarify, to understand - because all of that was peripheral, anyway, and didn't even matter.
It's much more difficult to apply that understanding online, because of the limits of this type of communication. I recognize I often fail to apply that understanding in debates that go on pointlessly. If I could remember that lesson I learned in real life, that has served me so well, on the internet, I would probably stop pointless exchanges long before I do. I would understand that the "gain" is something completely unrelated to what the poster is actually saying, anyway, so tackling what they are saying will not help, but will only continue the cycle. The problem is that, on the internet, because we don't know each other well, we can only guess at the "gain".
I also think women have more difficulty letting go trying to explain because we are so verbally and relationship oriented.