Online friendships - your experiences?
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I've been part of an anxiety group for a few months ago on Skype and I've "met" a ton of great people. I'm particularly close to one person and we talk every single day and are extremely close, but I keep worrying about the inevitable day when one of us will outgrow the friendship and we will start to grow apart. I know this friendship won't last forever but I can't help but feel attached.
I've had online friends in the past that lasted for a long time but we always drift apart and never talked again. That's life, right?
Just interested to read other peoples experiences. I find the subject interesting.
I've had online friends in the past that lasted for a long time but we always drift apart and never talked again. That's life, right?
Just interested to read other peoples experiences. I find the subject interesting.
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I've come across some really great people online and im still in touch with someone I first started chatting to online back around 2001, which is a bit of a miracle but I've lost touch with numerous people too. Its always sad when good friends you thought you were close to, seem to 'disappear'.
As I said in the other thread, I've stayed friends with pretty much all the people I've met online through various different ways, either through gaming or forums. There's only been a few who've drifted off over the years who no-one I know is still in touch with.
The vast majority of them though I've known now since the mid 1990s and we're still gaming together, having yearly meets and chatting on an almost daily basis.
A REASON, A SEASON OR A LIFETIME
People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.
When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
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Thanks
I've had many many online friendships over the years. Some have lasted, some have fell apart (massively in some cases) and there's the few that seemingly disappeared.
Her circumstances then changed (she got into a relationship) and she didn't seem to be around as much which meant things began to "drift". We are still in loose contact via Facebook, and about a year ago we chatted briefly over the DM facility, but things had definitely changed and the convo didn't seem to flow as it used to. Before we could chat for hours on end about all sorts of things, but it just didn't see to go anywhere and felt awkward.
The thing is the whole time we were close I always had "real life" friends, but she didn't. She had a loneliness about her at that time, and I think I fulfilled some kind of need for friendship that she lack in the real world.
I definitely do miss her though, as sad as that sounds.
Doesn't sound sad at all. I miss many online friends I've lost contact with and hope they're all doing well
I've had many other online friendships, but that was definitely the closest I've had.
I was quite ill with anxiety for a while, and she was tower of support during that time. I won't forget that, and we did have lots in common.
I do know from Facebook she is happy and well, which I'm pleased about.
I haven't had someone I talk to for hours, for some time, well certainly some months anyway but I remember it. Its always a shame when such friendships drift apart, even if its just a fact of life and there's nothing sad (as in lame) about that.
Wisdom, thanks for that.
This friendship was definitely special. I've had many online friendships but we'd talk most days. Either via MSN ( it predated Facebook and Twitter) or text or phone. Then it ended.
I remember MSN messenger, I used to use it sometimes. Most of my closest friends (close in terms of the amount of messages sent and how well we knew one another etc., rather than geographically close) used to contact me either through my AOL buddy list most days or every week or so, or through email. Its certainly nice when having a bad day, to think at least I can talk about this with such-and-such and when I get home and log on tonight, when you get used to them being around so much.
Its when the other person seems to disappear with little or no warning, that can be both worrying and feel a little hurtful.
Sounds like the relationship I had with one of my old online friends from 2003 to 2005. I felt like she was getting too attached to me as some people who knew her offline (I wouldn't call them her friends as they used to bully her) added me on msn and told me how she would talk about me a lot at school, that she was obsessed with me and thought she was a lesbian so I started talking to her quite a bit less although I felt a bit sorry for her at times as she would talk about her depression but at the same time she could be really funny. We eventually drifted apart, I came across her on Facebook a couple of years ago and added her but she didn't accept.
I had other online friends as I was quite into website editing then and there was a community of us but I miss her the most.
That's sort of what happened with me. We'd talk most days, occasionally real life would get in the way and there would be a lull, but it would always resume as normal.
Then the lull continued much longer than usual and I became quite worried, I then received a short message saying she was sorry for being distant and that she had stuff going on in her life, turned out she'd begun a relationship and even though I was happy for her the friendship just changed and contact became infrequent.
I suppose that kind of thing happens in really life friendships as well.
Yep, I've noticed that too as set out here: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1943923
Like anything one day one of us just won't text the other, nothing will be said about it and it'll end there like that.
At least she sent you a message to say as much though, im sure others have just disappeared and never bothered to explain why they were around one day and seemed to have deleted their username the next(!).
Yeah its just part of life, so they say, that doesn't mean it isn't a shame though. I sometimes think back to my best friend in primary school - she was a good friend, she'd said she'd stay in touch and keep visiting me after we started secondary school, even though she hadn't got into the same class as me because I was very nervous and scared about starting a new school and losing touch with my old friends and she never did. I didn't talk to her again and then years later I saw her in passing at the school when classes swapped over and she was chatting with other friends, while I'd become painfully shy and barely had any friends - she barely noticed me walking in
One of my dearest friends I met on a craft forum several years back and we had a lot in common, chatted on PM as well as the boards for ages before she let drop where she lived which is down the road from me. So we do stuff together, go various places, quite a lot although she is much more into the forum boards than I am, and she meets up with loads of people who I'd not touch with someone else's bargepole. ;o)
One of them actually came down from Leeds to be with me when my daughter had her brain surgery 2 years ago (it was the first time we met face-to-face) and we are still in touch to this day.
Two others are my best buddies, one lives quite near and we meet up a couple of times a year and have been to see Billy Joel together
So, I've met up with around 10 people and made good friends of 3, along with others I've never met who I keep in touch with regularly on Twitter or Facebook and whose online company I enjoy very much.