I’m so lonely…
I seem to get my teeth stuck into particular subject matters and, like a big, deep-growling mastiff, try to tear it to pieces. Hopefully it’s not like an annoying and yappy terrier. Again, this is on the topic of immersion — does the lack of immersion in real life cause us to be lonely?
First some questions: Why, given an unprecedented number of ways to communicate and bond and share experiences (Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, forums…), do we remain resolutely bereft of companionship? Are we only ‘relatively’ lonely? Is ‘lonely’ a phrase that oldies throw around so much that the younger generations start echoing its sentiment, and eventually feeling it? ‘We don’t see each other face-to-face any more… using the telephone/MSN/Skype just isn’t the same…’
It isn’t the same — but because it’s different does that make it worse?
Are we only ‘lonely’ because we are told, as we guiltily hunch over our computer screens, we should feel so? Because we are told we must surround ourselves with friends and loved ones lest we don’t make it through the cold, hard winter nights? Is being a ‘loner’ bad, or just a wild break from the cultural norm?
Is spending most of our day behind a screen really a problem?
Some answers: It’s not that we meet relatively few people online — quite the opposite — but people seem to think that the bonds we make online are somehow less substantial because they stem from virtual places and virtual obligations. When I help someone find the right monster to kill in World of Warcraft, is it not the same as counseling a friend’s real-life woes in a real-life bar, ala Cheers? Can you be friends with someone you’ve never met face-to-face? If you tell a friend that you will be somewhere at a certain time, you’ll try your best to be there! If I arrange to log onto MSN and chat with a virtual friend, and then fail to show up, does that make me a bad person?
Right now, some (most?) of you are thinking: ‘no, real life overrules MSN’ — and I’m thinking that my friend on MSN is just as important as anything that might come up in real life. They’re virtual, I know. They are not substantiated or grounded in reality. There is no real-world repercussions if you fail to turn up. But they are still real people. It’s almost the epitome of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. We [don't want to]/[can't] be friends with someone we’re unable to touch or feel; it seemingly takes a super-human effort to feel for someone you may never meet.
And that’s fine. Virtual, just-add-water apply-where-necessary friends have their purpose. But… this situation isn’t going to get any better. More and more of our interactions will be virtual. True, some of us do take our online relationships into real life; heck, online dating accounts for a huge portion of Internet usage! But what I’m talking about here is more endemic — it’s laziness. It’s being satisfied with vague, tenuous, barely-scratching-the-surface friendships — if they can even be called that. It’s the Fight Club idea of ’single serving’ friendships taken to the next level: instead of making them on planes and trains, we make them while buzzing and zipping around the Internet and various social portals.
For some reason we are satisfied with ‘friendship lite’; instant gratification, none of the mess!!!
It’s a hollow feeling of satiation. Fed with juicy friendliness for just long enough — no more, no less.
Does being able to avoid the long-term difficulties of relationships (friendship) really have such an irresistible allure? By keeping everyone at a safe distance we can successfully deal with arguments or heartbreaks — because there’s no one to conflict with. These virtually-non-existent friendships enable us to focus on what we want to do. How selfish. We use the computer screen to screen real life, letting only choice morsels that lay within our comfort zone through.
Maybe we’ve always wished we could control how close people got to us, but until now we lacked a way to hold people at bay. This could just be a manifestation of self-preservation. Or just the pinnacle, or trough, of our Instant Gratification Society.
The scary thing is that this ‘thousands of acquaintances, but few friends’ lifestyle is going unchecked, unabated. It’s actually acceptable to merely tap your acquaintances for information or job offers and go skipping off. When one of my acquaintances asks ‘how are you?’ I simply answer ‘what do you want?’ — I don’t even feel rude; I feel like I’m doing us both a favour by cutting out the small-talk.
If contemporary society continues along this path, where real, tangible interaction will be limited at best and non-existent at worst, we need to start treating our virtual friends just as we would real friends. I’m not saying we should try to meet everyone that we know online, but we should try to nurture friendships. We must move back towards the friends-of-friends model and away from utilising and abusing a sea of faceless acquaintances. We have to start caring. Ick…
Ultimately though, because if anything humans are predictable, we won’t change. Technology will work its magic and dig us out of yet another hole. Before we know it we’ll be lounging in Star Trekesque Holodecks with holographic, computer-controlled projections of whichever acquaintance we feel like spending time with. Or we’ll simply get a robot friend; or better yet, a pet dog or cat. They can’t talk back and are very obedient.
Related posts:
You should read Walker Percy. His novels and books center around people who have what they think they’ve wanted their whole lives, yet are still miserable. It may be a cliche, but it’s true… we want what we can’t have. I can attest to that.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:34 amI started using the Internet more when I moved away from home because, yes, I’m lonely. But I also love chatting with friends and family, the Internet makes communication possible when you’re far away from home. It doesn’t replace the face to face interaction, of course but when we have no choice, it’s the best one.
Lovely post, as usual Seb.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:36 amI have online friends..I also have friends that I have met online..and friends in the ‘real world’.
They’re all friends, just in a different way…like different friends for different situations, there’s no one size fits all when it comes to friendship. For example, my ‘real life’ friends are great for say going out for a coffee with when I’m bored or lonely and in need of some companionship but there’s also my online friends who I turn to for advice that I might not be comfortable asking from ‘real life’ friends.
I couldn’t however cope with out my ‘real life’ friends… even though I’m a bit of an introvert and like my own private space way too much, there are times when yes, I am lonely, and the only thing that will do is some proper face to face time with a friend.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:47 am… you need a friend take a dog
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 amhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7898510.stm
Yet another situation where doing something will apparently strike you down with cancer, argh!
http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Online_Social_Interaction_-_Behavioural_Effect_of_Frequent_Usage
However this article suggests a few of the “common” issues that online social interaction seems to create.
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 amI personally couldnt do without the face to face relationships, physical contact and all that.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 amIt doesnt diminish the importance of friends I have made online – I have some I met online originally who I am now “real life” friends with, but others who I have never met face to face. Even with those people, though, I like to hear their voice and see their face – skype chats, phonecalls, photos….there is always that contact that goes above the virtual in order for me to actually connect with someone on a level that would make me count them as “real” friends. Even just to hear the sound of their voice. Aquaintances, sure, but friends?
There are people I have met online who have helped me through some very hard times, but I have often wondered if they helped me so much *because* I dont know them, rather than in spite of it, if that makes sense.
I started blogging mainly because I was just out of a very long relationship and I moved away from home. But, I have always, always had friends online. The strange thing is, the lonely feeling doesn’t come from being online, I think being online, be it on facebook, blogger etc makes me feel more belonged than anything else. Its when we go out there and meet real people, ( and in a new place ) is when you feel “lonely”. Back home I had loads of ppl I could call my own.. and there, lonely wasn’t something that I was!!
What really surprises me is how I can agree with you so much?? 
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:31 pmI was thinking about all this the other day, how sometimes I feel “lonely” so I’ll go online and see what all my blogger friends are up to. Their lives are just as interesting to me as my friends in real life, and in a way, I’d much rather converse with them then a lot of people I see and deal with day to day. A lot of times I think how I wish we all did know each other in real life and we could hang out all the time, but who knows if it would even be the same and if we’d all even be as close if we actually did. Who knows…
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 pmOh, Sebby-Debb… you are truly a sensitive, introspective, tortured young man. Are you sure you aren’t gay?
Speaking personally, I can unequivocally state that I have no desire to hang out with you in real life, though I wouldn’t mind being in “The Pirates of Penzance” with you or something, something you most certainly cannot do online. This is because, though, I hate “hanging out” with people in real life, no matter who they are. Being a-social, and a person who has always communicated more effectively through the written word, the internet and its associated relationships are a rather convenient breeding ground for socialization that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I mean, look at people with Aspergers– they would freak the shit out of most people in the “real world” but they can find tractor and train chat boards and discussion groups online and form positive relationships, because the people they’re talking to don’t have to get freaked out by their hand fwapping or how close they’re standing or the eye contact that they aren’t making.
The unpleasant fact is, most of our in-person relationships are just as hollow, if not more so, than our online relationships. They’re full of tacit approvals, fateous remarks and obsequious gestures that don’t mean anything– we’re catty and mean and unappreciative of the people in our inner sphere and we repeatedly dissapoint and get disappointed, so why not stick to the internet, where flakiness goes relatively unpunished, but loyalty is, by and large, appreciated?
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pmI think online interactions can give a false sense of connection, which can be dangerous. Not in the, that 30 year old responsible middle aged mother youa re talking to is really some 50 year old creepy stalker person, but in letting it replace too much of our real connections. I spend more time talking with people online now than in person, but that is very much as a result of present circumstances, including the fact that a lot of my long term friends are now 1000km away or so. Online connections are immediate though, and alluring, and can be very revealing, often more quickly than in person connections. They do not however, assuage feelings of loneliness, and I know I frequently long for the in person companionship of others in preference to online, and I believe it is a real human need and people should not be fooled into thinking otherwise. I also think (and suspect there may be studies on this) that spending too much time online affects our ability to interact with people in the flesh on a one to one level. We end up lacking certain social norms having not been exposed to them enough, nor had the opportunity to exercise them.
Almost all the people I communicate with online are people that I also know in real life, and in general, I don’t friend people online unless they have been introduced one way or another by someone I already know, or there is a connection in some way (such as with your good self). But then, I didn’t have ready access to the internet until my mid 20s and already had established a goodly number of adult relationships by then. I imagine that is a vastly different scenario to the next generation who are spending quite a lot of time online from a much earlier age. I really began to notice the difference when my partner was living on the other side of the world and the internet enabled us to stay in touch easily and cheaply. After work, my main interest was to come home so i could chat with him, and vice versa for him. After we broke up was a bit of an eye opener for me, as that lifestyle didn’t really fit anymore and I had the sense of coming home to an empty house and longed to spend time in the company of real flesh and bone people.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pmAlrighty… *cracks knuckles*
(Hi Jessica! Not seen you around these parts before. I’ll check out his books. But I think ‘the unreachable’ is a theme very common in almost all books and films. You always want what you can’t have. And when you have everything you want, you create new Must Haves… it is some dark road whose only resolution is to give up everything and become a tree-hugging gypsy without any material possessions…)
Mandy: I think, if we all knew each other in real life — the bloggers, that is — we’d soon grow sick of each other. I think about 90% of the relationships we make here online are vacuous, meaningless. There might be one or two bloggers that you really ‘bond’ with, but chances are they are just after your attention, your praise, your pity. But hey, occasional meet-ups seem to work just fine. There’s a lot of common ground between bloggers. But long-term… I think a group of bloggers would probably end up knifing each other. And blogging about it, most importantly.
I think you’re perhaps a little bitter and biased on the matter, Apron, but that’s OK… that’s you
I don’t see any reason why real life relationships would be any worse, or any better than virtual ones. I’m just suggesting that we should try to treat virtual friends as if they are real people. I think perhaps we forget that, even though someone is 5000 miles away, they still have feelings. But you’re right — maybe we forget that even when face-to-face…
My point of view (which ties in nicely with Alison): I have almost zero face-to-face friends. Many acquaintances, or people that I know, but basically no friends. And I survive — and quite well, I might add! I have my virtual friendships to thank for about 70% of my world travel.
I had a lot of friends once. I lost them for reasons outside of my control. I turned to the Internet back then, for companionship, and I’ve been there ever since. I try to treat them like real friends, and as such I only need to seek the solace of a warm female body every few months or so — kind of like a ‘real life top-up’.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:28 pmMe? Bitter?
It’s funny, Sebastian. I think that we will one day get to the point where we do not distinguish “internet friends” from “real life friends,” because I think one day it won’t fucking matter– and I think that’s no bad thing. Just like we, hopefully, wouldn’t introduce Kamal as “my black friend” or Schmuelie as “my Jewish friend” or Graham Norton as “my Gay, Irish non-friend.”
There shouldn’t be a distinction, and there shouldn’t be a difference. There’s no reason an “internet friend” can’t just be your friend.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 pmWell, no shit, that’s what I’m trying to say, Apron
But currently, virtual/Internet friends don’t seem to have quite the same privileges of real life friends. They’re second on the priority list.
If we’re going to continue along this path of virtualisation and avatars, then we need to treat all people equally, irrespective of distance/tangibility.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:01 pmAnother insightful read. I have been mulling about this for a long time now. And maybe it’s true that I prefer online friendships because it is less complicated . That doesn’t mean I care less. I have met many friends online whom I call on when I need to cry (on Skype because call quality is better) and I do like spending the whole day chatting with my friends online because it feels a lot like hanging out. However, I think it isn’t healthy to just live a virtual life because people just project themselves differently in a virtual world and present themselves in a way they wanna be perceived. It would be best if your virtual friends can also be your friends in real life.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pmAhhh, that’s another good topic — whether the fact that we have differently online makes a difference to the friendships we make, or not.
Generally our real-life friends are school mates, or those we meet at work. Friends of consequence, I guess.
Online, friends are nearly always met in very specific settings. Games, forums…
But then again, do we ‘act ourselves’ in real life? We have a facade online, certainly — we can be whoever we like!! — but is it any better offline… I don’t know.
I pride myself on being the same offline as online, for example — and many of my online friendships have translated into the real world easily
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:10 pmgreat article, sebby.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:17 pmi actually do care a great deal about a lot of my online (mostly bloggy) friends. i also want to meet a lot of them as a result! you make an interesting argument.. none of this is going to change.. so why should ‘loneliness’ have to mean less “IRL” friends and spending time in front of a screen? isn’t this an outdated concept since we are afterall in the 21st century? are we really LONELY or just “lonely” by 20th century standards (which is to say, NOT lonely, just shifting in definition of loneliness and friendship). computer technology is all still relatively new, so i understand people’s gripes when they think that this screen interaction is a bad thing. but does it have to be? i’ve met a lot of amazing people that i wouldn’t have been able to meet if it wasn’t for the internet. even dated some. i don’t feel particularly lonely. and, what about the socialite who has a couple hundred aquaintances, spends lots of “IRL” time with a barrage of people, but no close friends. are THEY lonely?? it’s all relative.
I have real-life friends
i have real life acquaintances
people can and do move between these groups
I have on-line friends
I have on-line acquaintances
Some people have moved form on-line to real-life friends and acquaintences
All these people are real and serve different roles in my life — some are good for a chat, some for passing the time of day whethe I am at my computer screen or “having a life”
Another thought — i grew up in the 50’s & 60’s way before computers and the internet and when even a land-line telephone was often a luxury. During my teens I had many penfriends around the world — all people i would never meet but counted as friends — were those the earlier equivalents of internet friendships? Having a pen-friend was never sneered at as being isolationist or strange — so why should internet friendships be so categorised?
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pmI’m of the opinion that you can grow as close to friends you make through the internet as you can with friends that are physically there. I would argue that I’m actually much closer to certain blogfriends than I am to many of my RL friends, and I’m often more up-to-date with happenings in their lives than those of RL friends.
I do have RL friends who don’t understand how I can become friends with people I’ve met online – citing the usual, i.e. how do you know that he/she is not a fifty-year old pervert lurking in a broken-down shack in Hoboken. While there might be these concerns with certain bloggers, I would like to think that the bloggers I’m friends with are who they say they are and certainly, from what I’ve seen, this seems to be the case.
I do need physical friendships – I’ve become very (unconsciously) tactile since studying in Australia – and there are days when I like just having a couple of friends around for a sleepover, or giving them hugs. However, there are alsp days when I don’t feel like physical human contact and I love that I can talk to different friends online. In addition to this, internet friends are often great at giving each other support, and objective advice. They also enrich our lives with their experiences and cultures.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that: Hell yeah! ‘Internet’ friends are just as important as ‘RL’ ones.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pmBut the only reason they can give objective advice is because they are kept at a distance? Because you only apprise Internet friends of the things you want them to know about? All your real-life friends might think that you’re straight; but Internet friends might know that you’re gay (or whatever).
Perhaps there is just space for both kinds of friends, as they obviously both serve different ‘needs’.
I just worry that I’ll never let anyone close enough to see the real ‘me’. The Internet is perfect for controlling how close people can get.
I don’t know if that’s healthy or not. It might be. I imagine we’ll find out in a few years…
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:47 pmI think that internet friends fill a specific void that real life friends can’t. At least for me. You can send an email off to them at 3 am when you can’t sleep and you get the satisfaction of human contact when all of your real life friends are asleep and unavailable. True it’s not physical human contact but I think it’s human contact all the same….
and when you already communicate with your “real life” friends via email, text, etc does that make your internet friends any different? Are they any different from the friend from high school who moved across the country who you haven’t seen in 6 years and now you only communicate via email…other than having seen the high school friend in person before? You still have the same kind of relationship, just with a slightly different history.
I feel like the people I meet online and then continue to communicate with on a regular basis are right up there with the friends who i have in the “real world”…isn’t the internet just another facet of the real world? so the friendships on the internet should then be just as real…right?
alright, I feel kinda rambly. have a great day.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 pmI have just one issue with your post; cats are not always obedient.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 pmBryan, you know… damn you. That last line read ‘loyal’ for about 6 hours, and I finally changed it just before I hit ‘publish’. I don’t know why I changed it. But you’re right, the cat/obedient thing doesn’t work any more — damn.
I think you’re right Hannah. I have 4 people I would consider ‘friends’ (as in, that I know in real life, and are entrusted with information about me that I wouldn’t tell anyone else) — one of those I have only seen once in the last five years. I think the most regularly-seen friend is one that I see once a year, on average. Otherwise, these friendships are entirely maintained online.
I guess this comes down to the classic ‘the Internet is a tool’ — it’s how you use it…? Those that abuse friendships will continue to do so, just via a new medium.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pmI’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the fear of dying alone is becoming an increasingly prevalent fear in our society.
100 years ago people rarely moved, they all stayed in roughly the same area. Your son would live next door, your daughter would be down the road, so when it came to old age and death, there were plenty of people around who would look after you, and make sure your final hours were not alone.
Now, because of things like the internet, people can move further away without totally losing the safety net of contact with loved ones. But the contact is relative to the distance, talking on the phone is no where near as interactive as seeing and touching people. For Introverted people such as myself it makes talking to new people a lot easier, I find it far easier to write than talk, but even introverts get lonely, and having lots of friends scattered around the globe is not much of a comfort when you really need a hug and realise that actually you don’t know anyone in the local area (except your family if, like me, you live at home).
I was going to say something else but I lost my train of thought.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 pmIt is a truth I can’t escape despite several attempts. I am far too dependent upon these ‘virtual’ relationships. I don’t know that I fit the norm, however. I have been completely intertwined with my computer and the people I meet thru it since I was 12. When the boy I was talking to called at an arbitrary hour and got my dad instead of me… my parents banned me from the computer until my 13th birthday. I have met a lot of gentlemen through what starts off as a ‘virtual’ friendship. Sometimes I wish I could take it back and not meet people. But it is what it is, I guess.
I disagree that saying hello or asking how someone is should mean anything less. And I have to tell you my dear, if that is how it is with your acquaintances… we might need to find you new ones. Or maybe it’s just me. To me, it is more. I need more than that, I need their connection with me.
In recent months, I have tried to make a much larger effort to get to know and be open to getting to know people I meet out in the everyday world. But I really feel people are so guarded out there… it’s damn near impossible to penetrate. All the fears of inadequacy, fears of rejections, and just plain fear of the world in general, being out there is a whole lot harder than being safe behind a screen. I know it took me like five attempts to finally give my number for the first time. And it ended with no response, so its hard to be that brave everyday and to take the hits.
I think it is hard all the way around. Good post, good insight!
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:03 pmSorry if I wasn’t clear there — I don’t mean that I ‘fob’ off my friends or acquaintances like that. I more mean that I know which of my ‘friends’ only use me for my resources/information. And I suppose I let them know that I know. No hard feelings, I’d just rather not beat around the bush with people that obviously don’t care how I am — my time is more valuable than that
As I said, I think this problem is endemic. You can try to fix it yourself — and kudos to you for trying! — but unless others also try, or acknowledge it as a problem, I think this will just gradually spiral out of control. Until technology saves us again. It takes an entire shift in point of view/opinion by the society to correct this kind of problem.
I’ve also heard the ’scared of dying alone’ thing, Mental, though that wasn’t on my mind as I wrote this (though it is now…)
It would make sense. Or perhaps it’s just contagion of concern — I doubt people worried about ‘dying alone’ back in the 1940s. It just wasn’t something you bothered to think about. You worried about dying in a war, or from tuberculosis. I guess we don’t have much to worry about today, except global warming and dying alone…
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pmI was lucky. A particular group of online/virtual friends I made when I was 18 years old are now my best buddies in real life. Vice versa, some of the ‘real’ friends I made in the course of my social-active years have slowly degenerate to an ‘online’ friend status, meaning, I only see them on the MSN or some other social platforms like Facebook and no more. That’s rehashing what Hannah had already mentioned. If you’d rather keep people at a virtual level, and you are happy with that amount of interaction, who is to say that it isn’t healthy? Being comfortable is healthy! And being overly selective with friends/self-exposure isn’t such a bad thing, it is a lesson I learned the hard way when I was as old as 23.
We know that the Internet has greatly changed the way humans deal with their relationships (or friendships in this context). However, it doesn’t always change the quality of it. I’ve initiate countless conversations with people I wouldn’t have done the same in real life because I’m painfully shy. This helps to break the ice and the subsequent meet-ups in real life run as smoothly as clockworks. It facilitates rather than deters me from making friends… but that’s just my case.
After all said and done, it’s rather impossible to feel lonely when you have friends from the Internet. There are bound to be a few graveyard cats on the MSN 24/7 and people who live in a different time zone from yours. Provided that you’re not in deep trouble, you don’t need that real cup of coffee with a flesh-and-blood in the middle of the night. You just want somebody to read your emoticons and take it from there.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:19 pmMy ‘internet friends’ are my friends. I refer to them as ‘my friends’. People roll their eyes at me and say “you don’t really KNOW them”, and that annoys me. But I see what you mean about the friendship lite thing. It’s very true. Internet friendships are great when convenient, and non existent when you don’t need them. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
But I can say for certain that I am never lonely. Not for companionship, not for friends, IRL or online. I know what it’s like to be truly lonely, and the internet can’t fill that void forever. At some point you need to face the music and be social in the real world, or learn to live with the loneliness.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:58 pmIs the “youth” (as i classify you, Seb) of today less able to form friendships than the children of yester-year? Their growing experience is nowadays wildly different from that of my childhood.
Then we would walk a mile or even two to school from an early age unaccompanied by parents – I certainly remember walking to & from primary school with my siblings when i was 8-ish and my brother a couple of years younger. During the school holidays & weekends we would be off around the estates & fields for hours at a time — sometimes packed off at 10.30 in the morning with a pack of sandwiches and told to be back by 5 oclock. Our parents did not know where we were, what we were doing –we were left to our resources — and so we had to rely on our own judgement of situations and people. We made friends with kids from other streets, other schools – from families that our parents did not know.
Now, kids are mostly ferried around by car from home to school to activity –rarely out of site of a responsible adult — and so their options for forming friendships are narrower — limited by the pre-selected groupings they belong to –school, ballet class, cub group etc. As they grow, they continue the pre-selection process by using gaming sites, internet fora and such like to form friendships. Or they rebel against their parents nannying by purposefully seeking friendships on the internet — a place where they usually dont have a parent watching over their shoulder.
Does this make sense?
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:59 pmLonely is a negative word, being a loner I think is a choice. Some people are okay with being “alone” a lot of the time.
I was never too enchanted with my fellow man, so I like to keep most of them at a distance. The friends I have though are like family and are supported with love and loyalty. I think my time on the internet and socializing electronically have actually made me more sociable in my offline life too which strikes me as odd. I talk to strangers a lot more now. It makes no sense I know!
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 pmWell, Angie, if anything, people you meet on the Internet are as akin to real life strangers as you’ll ever get.
Internet friendships are just proof that communicating and bonding with others is a very innate human (animal?) ability. Really — relationships are something we seem to naturally gravitate towards. Which makes me think this whole ‘lonely’ thing is certainly a choice, rather than a ‘condition’.
re: the ‘we used to walk to school when we were younger’ argument. What I wonder is: are we ferried by car _because_ we are unable to make it there and back safely… OR… are we unable to make it there and back because we’ve been ferried all our lives?
When did the ferrying/hand-holding begin?
_Why_ did it begin?
The media…?
September 24th, 2009 at 12:12 amSo this is what immersion does to you huh? Lol. Love the way you reflect on this so-called ‘virtual friends’ that deserve the same respect and treatment as we do to our ‘real friends’. Virtual or not, it’s the friendship that counts.
September 24th, 2009 at 2:53 amThis is what a LACK of immersion does to you! If you just skim the surface, take a quick sip, and then move onto the next watering hole.
A lot of people (as you can see here) value their virtual friendships very highly. But those commenting here are those that play online games, that have met virtual friends in the real world… it is a small sub-section, I think
September 24th, 2009 at 2:56 amthis is a good one. you know, over my year in taiwan, i nurtured friendships online through blogging to the point that I felt I had more “friends” online than off. Even some of my back-home relationships were built and nurtured while i was away so that i came back to almost a completely different set of friends.
It can be done online… it just takes intention.
…something a lot of us don’t have. Not sure that I would have had it myself had it not been for the lonely situation i was in.
great points seb.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:00 amI’m not sure why but I find myself lonely despire surrounding myself with people. Friends, family, coworkers, students, etc. I’m constantly communicating with somebody and yet I feel completely alone. For the most part communicating with people through internetty ways really helps with that feeling of loneliness. I’m not sure why they are more consoling than an IRL friend. However, I know that I express real feelings more frequently with people I’ve never met than with those I see daily. It’s easier to be open and honest here.
Even though I cherish my IRL relationships, I agree that my internet peeps are just as important to me as anyone else in my life. Sometimes more imporatant because they help me deal with the people I interact with in person daily.
That’s my jumble of thoughts but thanks for getting me thinking.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:29 amCheers, Chase! Again, I think I am perhaps preaching to the choir here
Always just a Gchat away, JPP…!
September 25th, 2009 at 2:26 am