I can see the ladies that play with Mary or have played in events with her getting a bit annoyed with Mary, I really don't see why some of the guys are getting into a hissy over a young lady perhaps overstating her abilities. I have long ago lost count of how many times I have heard a youngster vastly overstate their abilities before an event. Many even believed what they said was true. We never know until the shooting starts. I have no idea how good Mary is or isn't. Never one to do things in moderation I put in at least 4000 hours in my first two years playing pool. Somebody that hadn't seen me play in a year or more had no idea what I could bring to the table.
Percentages are a lot like statistics, you can make them jump through hoops. I can outshoot 99% of the people in the world in my chosen forms of firearms competition. That is absolutely true. Of course it is true that less than 1% of the people in the world even attempt to shoot short range benchrest rifle competition and it is an acquired skill, nobody starts off skilled at it any more than anyone starts off expert at pool. Shooting pistols is a little dicier but I'm pretty safely in the top 10% and I suspect considerably less than 10% of the world population actually competes with pistols in my favored forms of competition so the 99% claim almost certainly holds true there too. In the same manner I can truthfully say that most women can't play pool. If I qualify that and say that most women that put some real effort into learning the game can't play pool then it becomes a lie.
I have to agree with Jaden that there is often a bit of a pack mentality with many posters on internet forums, all forums including this one. A lot of people may be thinking something but nobody says anything. Then one person finally says what a bunch are thinking and many more join in.
Often I accept things in threads at face value and don't really care if they are true or false. If true we will find out soon enough. If false it doesn't take too long to find that out either. I don't get too upset either way when I don't have a dog in the fight. I have enjoyed Mary's posts without really caring enough to dig too deeply, it doesn't really matter. I have enjoyed OMGWTF's posts and blog for years, again without digging too deeply. I enjoy reading other people's view of the world. If somebody else tells me that view is a bit slanted I'm not too surprised, almost everyone's viewpoint is.
Mary brought a bit of lightness and fun to the forum and I appreciated it. No idea how she is in real life but the same is true of almost every other poster on this forum. I receive PM's or other private communications that someone isn't quite as they seem fairly often. That is the particular person's perspective giving me the head's up and I have to judge both from what I know and make a guess. Most often the decision is to proceed with the slight caution I use with all people I don't know well. Some of my best friends that always treated me very fairly had less than sterling reputations with some people. I tend to judge people by how they treat me, my friends, and my family. Only when I hear of a pattern of behavior from multiple people do I give it much weight if the information is coming from people I don't know well.
We all judge everyone we meet or interact with to some degree, impossible not to. However we should reserve firm and final judgments until and unless we have
a real body of solid information to judge by.
Hu