/en/ - General

I'm on the opposite end; I think the internet has fucked my brain to the point I never feel lonely, so I can't really empathize. I live in a weird place where most people I knew from local (low latency) game servers were less than 100 km away from me and it was really easy to organize meet ups and hang out. At some point my group of friends was a 50/50 mix of people that I met in school, college and work and people I met on the internet. But with time things like hanging out, being in the group, understanding the in-group codes and jokes, etc. became increasingly boring, so I don't do it anymore. I'm continually meeting new people and socializing, both online and offline, and I consider myself good at it, but it is fake, I don't feel the connection I felt when I was a teenager and I don't really care. I prefer the one-off interactions that imageboards deliver, or simply being alone. My point is that people are people and there isn't much difference if there is a screen in the middle or not. I will go as far as to say that the screens allow slightly superior interactions, like sharing media or collaborating on projects. Hanging out in person means having basically the same conversations you would have online but in a worse location. This is why when people say they feel lonely I assume they mean they are either bored or sexually frustrated, but maybe I'm projecting. I don't think my experience is uncommon, considering the number of people that need alcohol just to stand being around their friends. It is a callousness that comes with age I guess.

>>5887 i think you've made a very rational conclusion anon. don't get me wrong i surely appreciate my online friends, but having people to spend time with IRL is good for the soul. it's nice to actually go OUT and spend time with friends even if it's just hitting up a Denny's and chatting. i think the nature of internet friendships makes them less committal than IRL ones, and that's okay. i've had many internet friends come and go, and i've came and gone from the lives of others too. it's still fun to appreciate the good times i've had with them even if we don't really hang out much anymore. the beauty of life is its impermanence! i'm rooting for you anon. i hope your adventures into the real world bear fruit. ganbatte!

>>5887 It feels horrible once you have that realization because you have already put so much hope into those relationships that it's hard to understand that they're not real. These people might as well not exist, I could delete all my accounts now and I'll never hear from them again. While I still run into my childhood friends who I haven't hung out in over a decade, not that I can connect with them or anything, I think I had deeper connections with online friends, but they're not sustainable which hurts even more.

I don't have such a negative approach to it. I feel like friendships in general, whether online or IRL, are just as much of something as you make them to be. Maybe I am biased from my own experiences with friendships, but despite the ease of leaving everyone online behind, "real" people can hurt you more. Being rejected by them, or if plans don't work out, it can affect one's mood way more. I usually used to be advoidant because of it and at some point ended up just not having any irl friends at all, if I could ever consider them such. It seemed like the people I was close with online genuinely cared about me. They still do, and we're still friends. Some of which are friendships that are almost 10 years, and the most consistent ones being around 6-7 years. I never needed much daily interaction, so I'm happy with what I have, and to everyone I'm not friends with anymore, I hope they still think back about the brief duration we had fun together and reminisce sometimes. The fleetingness of internet friendships can be a blessing too, if you're willing to see it that way. I feel like a reject in everything, and I tend to isolate a lot and don't have the energy to text anyone back for long periods of time, and with no one being able to ring my bell and interrupt my process of recharging, it's kind of.. peaceful. But I definitely don't want to disagree; having IRL friends is good and can be a very enjoyable experience if you have the right people around you.  I hope life treats you kindly and things work out the way you want it to be.

The more I have genuine fulfilling conversations/relationships IRL, the less I want them online. They just feel more ... Real. Even if it's heartbreaking and painful, it's the good type of pain. Makes you feel more alive. You can actually see their facial expressions, touch them, see them, live in the moment. Everyone online is fake/bot/manipulative/corporate, it's so soulless. The erosion of real life social environments and public spaces has caused so much suffering. Nobody likes online dating, it sucks. Nobody wants to be on a app to "make friends." It's completely illogical to our biology and our psychology. We use to make friends through real life activities and events. We use to go out and just converse with people. What the hell happened? Why is it so hard now? Why is it so much more socially unacceptable and awkward? Was it always this way? What the hell do people do? Venture on luck that they will just click with people by being at exactly the right place and exactly the right time? Just texting back and forth with each other like dopamine fried zombies? I don't want online friends. They suck. I just want better real life social environments where I feel I can actually feel like I am doing something. Where I feel like I can grow and get better at something and vice versa towards the person across from me. Not something like alcohol, video games, consumption, or drugs - degeneracy, but somewhere I can improve. Somewhere I can get better. But not like a solitude hobby like the gym, more like a co-op hobby. I don't know, it's all very confusing. And everything feels tribal, forced, faked, artificial, - nothing feels real.

>>5965 you are looking for "competition". Play sports.