i have been thinking about on-line friendships and what is the future for them.

as we all know, we come onto forums and meet people.
sometimes we go to our favourite band (pink floyd) website and there we meet people who enjoy the same music.
we go to technology sites and develop communications with people and learn more about computer or whatever.
we buy stuff from ebay and occasionaly the seller will call back and you started talking to them.
the list appears endless regarding places to meet people.

what happens to these friendships?
sometimes they develop into telephone contact, or email contact.
sometimes they stay strictly forum based with no personal contact.
sometimes they go great for a while and then whammo!, you never hear from the person again.

we offer support to each other in times of difficulty and sorrow or happiness.
we are able to put together imaginative visions of what the person might look like.
we gather information about each other, when they tell us about their employment, or their families.
sometime they post photos of themselves.
they tell us what they are studying.
we know the country they live in, and sometimes the city or town.
we celebrate each other birthday by having pretend parties.
we post links to pictures of drinks and cakes, with the thought that this is what you would give the person in real life.

we become a part of each other lives
we become cyber involved.

but what happens when we get off the internet and go about our daily lives.
do we think about our on-line friends and wonder how they are going?
do we wonder how the other person is going at work? or how they will go with some exam that they said they were sitting for.
when someone is sick or they have a bereavement in their family,do we wonder how they are?
do we think of them when we are at the shops buying our milk, like we would think about the real people who we mingle daily with.
while we are out putting the washing on the line, do we wonder what is happening to our on-line friends?
do we think of them when we know they are going for job interviews or doctor appointments?
do we find ourselves hoping that our on-line friends will be okay?
would we miss them if the internets crashed?

so do we find ourselves being more interested in our vitual friends than our regular friends, perhaps because we have small unlikeable families and small friendship networks. or because we are confirned to the house for health or financial reasons.

do we find ourselves choosing to stay on-line rather than go out into the real world?
do we find comfort in the anonymousity of the internet?
would we rather have on-line friends because they are less judgemental of our phsyical presentatations.
do we find it easier to talk to our on-line friends? thanks to the power of the word processor, we can write something, check spelling, check that it is sensible and then post, rather than just blurt out rubbish in the real world?

sometimes we know their real names but usually we just know their usernames.
sometime we think they women and we find out they are men, and visa versa, so the impression we had of them is not as it really is.
sometimes we don't like the other poster, we think they post rubbish all of the time, we think they are attention seeking, but we usually don't say anything, so sense in making waves, they are just internet people

do people become good enough friends that they are able to travel overseas to visit each other for holidays?
do they go to concerts together?
do they meet at cafes.

and then what happens when we need a hug, or a shoulder to cry on? and the person who understands you the most, is actually on the other side of the ocean?
what happens when you find comfort from another person, but you know you will never meet, due to distance, finances and health.
sometimes real feelings develop for other internet people, but these feelings are held back, because it is after-all only an interent friendship.
no future there, we guess..

do people become disappointed when they meet the other person, because while they have had a brilliant commuincation on-line, the actual face to face is not what they expected. is the sexy vision actually fair, fat and bland? will the well spoken turn out to be an unhealthy chain smoking unwashed fellow?


or do we simply stop thinking about them when we log off????



i have a healthy balance of real friends and internet friends, i am just curious....

What happens with me is I will start noticing the personalities on the board and if I find that I can relate to them and we e-mail back and forth and we learn somethings about one anothers lives and we joke around and when the Men I have been chatting with (because I am STILL trying to find BOB that bull@@@@) get a girlfriend they inevitably stop joking with me and chatting I guess the new squeez becomes there whole world and I get UberShunned!! and it stings but that is the way of it in the NET..

...

I like to imagine you all as pieces of food I can eat if I ever met you.

Usually I tend to forget about my online friends when I'm not online. But sometimes out in the real world something will remind me of them or of some conversation we had, but other than that I don't think about my forum friends too much.

Some of my online friends I've added to my msn and I talk to them quite a bit, but I've never physically met with any of them. Personally, I really don't ever wanna meet face-to-face with anyone I met online. I'm far too paranoid.

A very thoughful and incisive post, Tats, which raises enough questions for a thesis.

Ten years ago I would have found it impossible to imagine the kind of cyber-village this board represents, but the anti-social hours I've worked for over a decade now have convinced me that such parallel societies can and do exist.

But on the very rare occasions I've introduced a real-life friend to boards on which I've posted regularly I've almost always regretted it. Such introductions have invariably resulted in either:

1. Indifference OR
2. Friendly mischief-making.

That's why I now tend to keep the two worlds separate and distinct.

Once or twice I've attempted to describe various village cyber-dramas to real-life friends and colleagues and have been met with:

1. Kindly indulgence.
2. Incomprehension.

I'll admit to a certain curiosity about some posters here and on other boards, but- since so much of our lives tends to be revealed here anyway- I wonder whether we'd have much to say to one another if we met tete a tete?

Q.- Who are we really speaking to when we post here?
A.- Ourselves.

Discuss.

Sure you would like me better if you met me in person I am not like the Tippsy GypsyDaisy I am quite educated about the ways of the world and not get to riled up in Bull@@@@..... GypsyDaisy

eddie,
i don't introduce my real world friends to each other, mainly because they are all different types of people and probably would not have much in common except perhaps - me.

i haven't introduced any real life people to any boards, no-one else seems as interested as i am. and not just in forums etc, in on-line information also. or maybe they have better real life hobbies than i do and don't have any spare time. they are curious to know that freindships can be created with people who you might never meet, but they don't indulge...

a cyber-village is a wonderful way to describe the communities created on the net.

i am sure that if some of us were to meet (from this board or others) we would definately have much to say to each other.
whether it would be pleasant or not is unsure.
but yes, some groups are very talkative and i am sure that meeting face to face would just encourage more conversations, not stop them.
who knows.


gyspy,

Quote:

Sure you would like me better if you met me in person I am not like the Tippsy GypsyDaisy I am quite educated about the ways of the world and not get to riled up in Bull@@@@..... GypsyDaisy

that is good news.
peace be with you.


woo! if we were all food, then i quess you could be a banana...


isn,

Quote:

I find it liberating to talk to people without the physical boundaries that limit our interactions.....

exactly...


audrey, i would be very parnoid that no-one would like me also.
or that i would not look like i think they imagine me to look like.

_________________
http://www.savethetigerfund.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home1

...

the family next door to me have a halloween party every year..


my friend sent me this.




also the banana was actually meant to represent tropical fruits, i should have found something more exotic.

happy halloween.....

Below this post Tat quotes me as saying I want to be a banana. Well, that was true on the day I wrote it, but it isn't true now. I forgot that monkeys eat bananas, and since I am on a personal mission of eradicating all the damned dirty monkeys from the Wisconsin Cheese Head to New York Jeter, I just don't see how being a banana fits.



...

Very interesting read Tatiana

Sometimes I think I have a better interest in people I just know from boards than in "real" people. I wonder why...

Tatiana, I have been thinking about your post ever since I read it the other morning. I do think about and worry about my cyber friends just as much as I do my 3-D friends. I sometimes naively forget that people can present themselves however they choose on the internet, something that I personally don't have the creativity to do. What you see is what you get with me. My biggest melting between cyber and real life is with TLB....I never in a million years would have guessed that I would be that daring to establish such a relationship rooted in the internet. My first Bobfriend was also my first internet contact, back in the days when I was scared of my shadow, and we remain email buddies to this day. I have made friends thru the 2 forums with a few like-minded women, and they are as real to me as anyone else in my life. Part of the appeal for me is the writing aspect, the ability to measure my words. I'm a letter writer since childhood when I had numerous penpals from around the country. Anyway, I guess I'm rambling, but you are all part of my life, for better or worse.