Relationships/Friendship in the time of the internet

You might not realize it, but the internet is fairly young. And it has greatly changed our way to live.
You are provided with an easy and fast way to communicate with millions of people around the world.

I sometimes compare it to the writing letters. Alphabetisation had brought a huge change,too.
When I was a kid, I had a penpal in Switzerland. We wrote each other for a few years, but never met. There certainly were closer friendships of the medium of letters than mine. It created quite a few amazing intellectual exchanges between scientists and artists, too, I believe.

But the perceptions seems to be very different.
For example I never heard a warning about meeting a penpal, while nowadays behind every other conversation on the internet there's an assumed pedo, or at least liar. On the other hand I've rarely heard girl talking about their penpal like it's their future husband (though I guess it did happen sometimes).

I think the internet brought about a new kind of relationships.
Communication is possible much faster, more often and with a greater range of media than before. I think this makes it more rapid and intense, with all dangers, pros and cons that come with it.

It seems to me that people are taking "internet friends" a lot less serious that "normal" ones, a lot less "binding" (sorry, don't know the proper word). Maybe because there's the next "internet bff" just around the virtual corner? Or is it the lack of physical presence? Do you think communication over the internet is inferior and merely a substitute for the real thing?
Some research suggests that people are a lot more open on the internet - why is there so much lies suspected nevertheless?

What do you think? Have you ever come across this issue?
In what way are your internet relationships different from real life ones, or penpals?
Can there be real friendship on the internet? Or is it just second class relations?
Any stories to tell?


I might have posted something similar in the past. But it's interesting to me, partly because I think it's fascinating, partly because I'm personally concerned, I guess.

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I like this thread. +karma for you.

Anyway,
I don't have too many friends on the internet.
Two, maybe three.
And I take them almost as serious as normal friends.
The reason I don't take the friendship as wholly serious as my other friends, is because i know they aren't going to, and I'm not going to put a bunch of personal information on the table on the internet.
They've sped up the internet, sure, but they also sped up means of transport and tracking and IP tapping, etc.

Pedo's know that their sweet spot are little girls and boys using mommy's computer to 'surf the web'.
Do you know how many disgusting pedo's there are on the site 'Club Penguin'?
Club Penguin is aimed for the ages of 7-14.
And it’s ridden with perverted little fuck who say “wnna b mi lil pingu?”
Pedo’s know that the internet is the easiest, least time consuming, cleanest, and most efficient way to be their own perverted selves.

Even people on EB, they say their shy in real life, quiet.
On here, their ridiculously boisterous, and they have piles upon piles of friends of all ages.
It’s because the internet is informal.
Like you go to a club, hook up with a guy, and get it on.
Totally informal because you don’t have to see him ever again if you choose so.

It’s easier to be cold and far away when you don’t have to look people in the eyes.
It’s easier to be a lot of fun when you don’t have to show them your bad mood, or your cutting scars from the night before.

Personally, I never indulged in it quite like that.
In fact, I get shunned a lot because I’m ‘No fun’.
But that’s okay. I’m not the one who’s going to get an internet stalker, and that’s just who I am. I’m not as.. Flamboyantly happy as most people appear on the internet, and I refuse to pretend.
So there you are;
People have so many friends on the internet, due to the fact that it’s easier to hide your anger or sadness when you don’t have to look in their face. It’s easier to forget, or push it aside.
It’s easier when your In YOUR own house, comfortable, familiar, to open up, or pretend to have a good time in the hopes of convincing yourself that you ARE having fun.

rockitemokid wrote: I like this thread. +karma for you.

Oh, thanks.


Personally I grow quite attached to (some) people in the internet. Not the "OMG you're the love of my life" kind of attached, but... Maybe it's because I don't really have any real-life friends; there are very few left, and far from where I live. So in the end I talk with people on the internet more than with them.
For some strange reason the remaining rl friends are girls, while the people I like to converse with on the internet are guys.

I don't pretend. I don't see why I should (in private life). I guess it doesn't really makes me liked, I'm not a very happy-go-lucky persona. I'm not sure how to change that though. But I think it's a bit more a prominent trait on the internet than in real life.

Anyway, I have some people on the internet I consider friends. There's different levels of course. Only few know my real name. And there's very, very few who know my full name, place where I live, and have my phone number (not that they'd ever use that information...).
I know they don't take it a serious as I do (though I secretly wish they would), but I can't seem to make myself like them less just because I know the feeling will not be returned. I never really got the concept of manipulating my own feelings that way (shame, it'd be very convenient). Partly I think that is just how I am, but then again I feel like a stalker or something - being more passioante about something than others is what they call obsessive, I guess. I have a very hard time letting them go. I take rejection to heart a lot. It will bother me for months. And I hate when people just disappear.
I have lost friends all my life, in real life and on the internet. It's so much easier on the internet though - you can simply disappear; you can't simply "block" people irl.

People attach reality to tangible things. The person you are IMing with is not tangible. In your mind the person on the other end isn't real.

Then again so many people DO lie on the internet and the internet has posed itself as a very real threat to those who don't know how to protect themselves. Because it's so easy for a, say, 35 year old overweight woman with ratty hair to say she's a twenty something average woman with ringlet hair on a dating site. For a pedophile to say he's a 13 year old boy who loves to play soccer and go to the movies and would love to hang out. For an emo kid to say her loving family hates her and ignores her.

I take internet friends just as seriously as normal friends.

Too bad I don't take either too seriously

Strawberry Switchblade wrote: People attach reality to tangible things. The person you are IMing with is not tangible. In your mind the person on the other end isn't real.

I think I did not quite get that.
That was a response to who/what question?

i like the people i know off the internet, its fun to meet all these people who have such different backgrounds.
some know very different things to me, and i know very different things to them
its awesome in my opinion

L wrote: Maybe because there's the next "internet bff" just around the virtual corner? Or is it the lack of physical presence? Do you think communication over the internet is inferior and merely a substitute for the real thing?

i had an online bf from sep. 1 2008 to jan. 11 2009. we never met, cuz he lives in florida and i live 14 hours away. i never thought of it as just another "bff around the virtual corner." we really did love each other, plan our kids' names, where we'd live, and all that stuff we'd do when we eventually met. the lack of physical presence did play a big part. we often felt sexually attracted to eachother, but we couldn't do anything, so we just masturbated over webcam. sorry if im getting alittle graphic. in our relationship, communicating through the internet wasn't inferior to the real thing. we also talked on the phone, and that may have something to do with it, but I think we spoke the way we felt as we would have in real life. It felt like we had already met before even though we hadn't. that's how close we were.

people think im weird when i tell them i had an online boyfriend, but they don't understand. probably because "online boyfriend" is not the best way to describe him. when people hear online boyfriend, they immediately think pedofile, or rapist, which is a bad stereotype. he was genuinely a good guy, and we still talk even today.

i guess im trying to say the internet can have bad side effects on relationships, but i wouldn't call it inferior to real life communicating.

stupidemo wrote: i like the people i know off the internet, its fun to meet all these people who have such different backgrounds.
some know very different things to me, and i know very different things to them
its awesome in my opinion

im exactly the same. honestly, i consider emobucket as the place where i hang out and chill with friends. like L, i have few real life friends, and like stupidemo, i like to meet new people who share the same ideas as me. online is the best place for me to do that since im pretty shy. theres a few people on emobucket i consider my friends though they probably dont know it.

i get oddly attached to people online too.
i play world of warcraft, mkay? theres this guy in my guild who was my online best bud. we use to text all the time, and even spoke a little. then he stopped playing WoW as much and started playing xbox more and with his real life friends. i got jealous. when i get a friend, i hold em tight. i dont get friends often, so when guy stopped texting me ect. i took it to heart. kinda like L i guess.

anyways, yeah whenever i feel lonely i just come to this site, talk a little, usually in serious discussions, and then im all better =]

also- i like the idea that alot of people know my under the name "stupidemo"

L wrote:
Anyway, I have some people on the internet I consider friends. There's different levels of course. Only few know my real name. And there's very, very few who know my full name, place where I live, and have my phone number (not that they'd ever use that information...).
I know they don't take it a serious as I do (though I secretly wish they would), but I can't seem to make myself like them less just because I know the feeling will not be returned. I never really got the concept of manipulating my own feelings that way (shame, it'd be very convenient). Partly I think that is just how I am, but then again I feel like a stalker or something - being more passioante about something than others is what they call obsessive, I guess. I have a very hard time letting them go. I take rejection to heart a lot. It will bother me for months. And I hate when people just disappear.
It's so much easier on the internet though - you can simply disappear; you can't simply "block" people irl.

I'm exactly the same way. I care a lot more for my "internet friends" than I should. I consider them real friends, and to be honest, some of them are my best friends in general.
I don't really get along well with people in real life, but I have a lot of friends. I'm a lot more open with my 'net friends, because I know that if I tell them something, they're less likely to tell people. At least, people that matter to me. I've met a few people who honestly mean the world to me, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.
I take most, if not all, internet friendships seriously because I know that there's an actual person on the other side of the computer screen, not a robot. I try to be there for them the best I can.

I also think it's interesting that I'm talking to people around the world. I really learn about their cultures from talking to them.

I agree with Ninto about the cultural thing, I've learned a lot from talking to people foreign to me.

I've met a lot of people over the course of how long I've been social online, and I've made quite a few good friends. I take them as seriously as my irl friends, maybe even more than some of my school friends because you have to be careful not to lose contact and what not. I have two or three people online who I'm extremely close to, and a lot that I enjoy talking with and that make me laugh. it's a good stress release, and it's easier to talk to people about things, and I've found people online relate to me a lot better than the people I know irl. In terms of netships, I think it's all about the individual. To comment on all netships as a bundle is unfair and judgmental. granted, there's a very small chance of them working out, but i know people who have met online and are now happily married. it happens. It all depends on the maturity, self control, and planning of each person. You can't expect to find the right person for you in your town or city when there's so many people around the world, sometimes you need to branch out. My final thought on it is this: If someone is happy, why take away and judge their happiness just because you think their decision to be in a relationship online is naive? It's their life, let them live it.

+karma for the thread, btw.

I think it can all depend a lot on your situation.

When I was a bit younger, I spent nearly 2 years full time where I didn't have a lot of friends at school, and every night I was on the computer playing WoW and made a whole lot of friends who were from the US etc. I think it did a lot for me. It gave me another view of the world. It gave another perspective. And from that time I formed three close bonds, two of those people I still talk to this day.

I think there friendship did a lot for me, and at a time when I felt like my RL friends weren't that reliable, they really stepped up, and we talked about everything (Mostly over ventrilo and in text). These days I still don't have a lot of friends IRL, and I think that has very much shaped how I view internet friendships. I think with the reliance I have on them, there is extra depth. And I dont think that makes them worth any less.

I have met up with people I met online, found two long term, RL relationships and made some awesome friends along the way. I wouldn't change the way its been, and I will continue to include the net in my daily life. I put a lot of faith in people. I dunno. My brain sort of died there.

Put it this way.
You can be anyone you want on the internet.
You're behind a computer screen, you think noone can hurt you.
People take the internet way too seriously.

On the internet, i have met people who have become my very good friends in real life.
I used to be friends with people from whoop whoop land.
What is the point in having friends there? Sure, you can chat with them. But they can't be there for you physically or emotionally when you need a friend.
How do you even know the person you're talking to isn't some 39 year old paedophile, like me.

Internet friends are as useless as internet relationships. I was foolish enough to be in one. What a fucking mistake that was. Never again.

xxfallendays13xx wrote: i never thought of it as just another "bff around the virtual corner."

That's not what I meant.
I meant that internet relationships/friendship are a lot easier to end, because there are so many more people and it's a loteasier to find the next/another friend who shares your interests, etc.

Shrew wrote: Put it this way.
You can be anyone you want on the internet.
You're behind a computer screen, you think noone can hurt you.
People take the internet way too seriously.

Yes and no.
I have found that actually most people on the internet are just that: normal people.
Many of them probably less fake on the internet than they are in real life.


Another pro of internet friendships is that they are not geographically bound. On the internet it doesn't matte much where you are. There's a time difference, yes.
But nowadays people don't stay in the town they were born in. I have made friends in grammar school, lost most of them when we went to different schools. I made friends later in school - who then moved to different places to study in the whole nation. There were friendships in university - which again ended when after graduating people had jobs all over the world.
Of course only talking isn't very much, and it pretty much is all you have on the internet. But when your rl friendships get reduced to the same level, because of the distance between you - then I found that in comparison internet friendships tend to endure that a lot better.


PS: Thanks for the karma.

http://everythingbetweenheavenandhell.blogspot.com/2009/10/blocked.html
More or less on topic.