On the Nature of Internet Friends
This entry will be dedicated to the ever-awesome Corinne, whose blog is currently the only one I really read that often. She's probably the only person that really would even consider checking this one since it effectively could just be called Don Whines Constantly Like a Bitch and is updated only slightly more often than never. I used to blog all the time on the old one but felt like the things I wanted to discuss often included frustrated references to the things people had done in real life, which I soon realized I couldn't fully unleash since I had effectively given the link out to everyone I knew back then.
Yeah, that was dumb. Somewhere along the line I created this blog instead by adding "x2" to the URL (Isn't that a bit like no one recognizing Superman as Clark Kent when he takes his glasses off? I think that might be one of those "tropes," but I'm far too lazy to go look up the name). I transferred over every entry I had from the old one so I could read them at my leisure or whenever I felt the need to reflect on how much I seem to avoid looking at the good things in life and only focus on the bad.
No, I'm not going down that road again -- I promised myself I'd write about something other than self-loathing today, and I think that something will be the dichotomous (Is that a word? Do I care?) relationship with the idea of having friends on the internet.
I'll save you the boring paragraphs to come and summarize now: like many things, the key is not to overindulge -- you never want to be at a point where all your best friends are people that are hundreds, even thousands of miles away from you -- but there's no reason you can't have them and in fact, I consider myself somewhat blessed to have met so many great people over the years. While I do greatly wish I had spent way less time on the internet growing up, there are still a handful of people that I keep in touch with from those years when I first began; years of sitting in AOL chatrooms roleplaying in Rhy'Din, specifically in that bloated OCS guild that became a second job for awhile.
Hard to believe that was something akin to ten years ago, at least. I think I was ... 19? I'm turning 32 tomorrow? I don't remember. When did it become so difficult to remember things, by the way? Is it age or alcohol? I forget.
I generally refer to my non-internet friends as "real" friends but have long been uncomfortable with that title. Most of the people I still communicate with on the internet are people that I've shared so much with during the bad times. These people were there when my mother and father were divorcing and my father was pretty much a jilted asshole (something I didn't really understand until she who shall not be named left me for someone else several years later, and honestly there's another subject that'd be worth a post at some point, maybe -- examining the relationship between your parents relationships and your own), and I had graduated high school with no plan of attack for a future (Yeah, I really should start on that sooner or later), and they're people that you talk to at your best and your worst. And while the title of "real" friend and "internet" friend is more meant to be based on cosmetics, it still often seems like the "internet" friends get more out of me than the "real" ones do (which would be another subject to blog about sometime).
Ever notice I have a real difficult time staying on my topic? I'm a one take guy; I'm not editting this shit later. That'll happen if I ever get serious enough to do this on a regular basis maybe.
Maybe.
Its taken years to realize but if I'm just going to be sitting at home by myself most of the time anyway, there's nothing wrong with it. My "real" friends should get priority and do in most counts, but there isn't any reason one can't have both. Your net friends will come and go, but you'll always have the memories of the good conversations and connections you made, even if you don't remember the specific details of them. And as long as you spend time outside experiencing the world, you can log in to your messengers and social media sites and comment and like and +1 to your heart's desire.
Holy crap blogger has changed -- my post wiped there, but there's a menu to get drafts back out and make edits! That's probably been there for years and I've never noticed. Anyway.
So here's to the texts you exchange from people you might not have met, the late night phone calls to the girl on the opposite coast, the lifetime of possible meetups, the people in the chat room rolling fake internet dice with you, and the people you're teaming up with to fight screen filling dragons and such with. Yes. I want a better life off the computer, but having one on the computer has probably kept me going through a lot of the things that made me want to quit.
One take right there; that's how the pros do it.
