Apparently not.

There are a number of people who post under different names, those names
dependent on which computer they're posting from. At some point this
fact led my defective eyes/brain to conflate Joe with Polfus.

My confusion originally arose from this post by Joe:
"I'll ask another question here next week and you'll answer it
dutifully like the monkey that you are because you, like Jim Beam,
have nothing better to do with your time. I'll make sure to let you
know that you answered my question too Tegger, since you'll have no
idea it was in fact me..."

I replied to that, and the very next post was from Polfus. I figured Joe
had morphed into Polfus, so I got fooled into thinking Polfus was
actually Joe, nym-shifting in order to entice me into responding.

Evidently I was mistaken.

Plus -- and I should have checked this first -- the traces show that Joe
appears to be in the Boston area, whereas you are somewhere near NYC.
Different people, it seems now.

Look, I don't want to pick fights with anybody. I'm sorry I confused you
two.

you're being very childish.  there may be a reason for it, abuse for
instance, but you'll never get treated like an adult if you don't behave
like an adult.

technically, it works like this: when two individuals interact, they go
through the motions of talking.  but on a basic level, there's also an
assessment going on of what /type/ of interaction it is.  adult to adult
works best.  but if one is being child-like, the interaction gets
off-track because the other person [unless they too are child-like] is
likely to be either disinterested or even hostile.  [duh]

so now for the bit you don't want to hear: when the "child" acts up and
flings their teddy in the corner, they're going to get slapped down by
pretty much anyone, particularly strangers.  the danger is that the
"child" then gets stuck in a negative feedback loop because when they
need something, they're not getting it, and so when they get slapped,
they act up even more, and get slapped harder.  anger and frustration
results.

the only way out of this cycle is to step back and try to approach
future interactions as an adult.  if someone [you] wants help, they may
not be able to give help right away, but acting like they will when they
have the chance can make up for it.  your action so far is to childishly
demand attention, then offer nothing in return.

now, with this knowledge, go back and re-read some of your transactions
on this group.  this is not a put-down.  what you'll see is that you've
had nothing but trouble getting what you want [and this probably extends
to other real-life transactions you have as well], yet most other people
here seem to have no problem.  that causes anger, frustration, and
increasingly bizarre behavior, but unfortunately, this makes the problem
of trying to get a result worse, not better.  so much so, that here you
are, months later, still simmering with resentment at previous failures.

move forward with this new information polfus.  see if you can transact
as an adult.  and, just so you know, when someone asks you how old you
are, they don't /really/ want to know your age, what they're saying is
that you're being childish and that you need to stop because you ain't
getting anywhere.