I can't stand it anymore!

Okay, there's this supposedly really clever way of "talking" on message boards and in blogs. It goes like this:

I? never thought I'd do something stupid like this.

The idea is you throw in a punctuation mark after the first word of the sentence which approximates the pause you'd use if you were actually speaking the sentence. It's annoying. It's obnoxious. It's being used too damn much.

Mostly I've seen it all over the place at this Survivor message board I frequent. The people there are great, but every time I read a sentence with that unnecessary bit of punctuation, I want to hit something. We are not speaking to each other - we're writing to each other. Don't try to pretend to be speaking. Call someone on the damn phone. Then you can throw in all the stupid pauses you want until the person hangs up on you.

Do you see this? Do you do this? If so, why? For the love of god, why?

Okay, my rant is over. I had to get that out.