[real friends, real life]
leogryffin made a (flocked) post earlier about the nature of online communication and how some people Just. Don't. Get it., and I was going to post a comment to her but er...it got sort of long. And besides that, it's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. So I thought I would post it here instead.
I've been computer-savvy since I was about ten, and have been communicating online since I was thirteen. We had a family computer and all, and dial-up, and I spent time hanging around in chat rooms etc. and emailing until I figured out instant messaging when I was about fifteen, and then I used that as a mode of communication through the last two years of highschool at a boarding school, all through college (with my roommates too, natch), and now into grad school. Since moving to Toronto, most of my friendships have been conducted entirely online. Between the_leaky, fandom in general, and LiveJournal, most of the people I feel closest to are people I've met online. My issue is that I have a hard time communicating serious personal issues to people because I can't stand them looking at me when I'm baring my soul, at least at first, and it makes it difficult for me to communicate in person until I feel really comfortable with an individual. This is of course a catch 22, because it's nearly impossible to get comfortable with someone until I've bared my soul and known that they are actually seeing what's inside me. All the people I've actually felt close to in the past are people who've known me for YEARS and in most cases lived with me long enough to see me break and my walls come down, and then have been there to help put me back together. The thing I like about friendships founded online is that I can share those things with people and know then that they still like me and care about me, and then when I meet them in person, I automatically feel closer to them because I know they're actually seeing the real me rather than the façade it is customary for me to put on.
I realise this poses its problems as well, since it makes it a lot harder for me to make friends with people in person, though that is still feasible. I just have a hard time clicking with people I meet through school or work or whatever. But I think this has alway been the case, since I have a hard time really opening up to people in the first place. This is just the result of belonging to a subculture, I think, and Harry Potter fandom and slash and the like are really all subcultures. I find myself holding my tongue a LOT when interacting with my colleagues and people I meet through other venues because you just can't talk about how you spent two hours last night writing Harry giving it to Draco up the bum. And while that's not the sum of who I am, the fact is, I'm alternative as far as my mindset on things and my interests and the things I'm comfortable with.
I think it's also odd because most people my age are going out to clubs and bars and the like and that's how they're meeting people. That's really not my scene at all, especially since I don't drink and I don't much like going out alone to places like that, and so my point of reference is, again, different. So really a lot of the time I feel like I just don't click with the people around me because they have very different interests and priorities, and I can have fun conversations with them, but I don't ever feel like I get close enough to them to form a real, deep friendship. Here, I've met a lot of people through fandom because they share similar interests, yes, but more importantly a similar mindset, and so all of my closest friends are people I communicate with nearly entirely online.
My parents, however, do not understand this at ALL. They think that because I'm not interacting with people face to face, I am lacking in social skills and "hiding behind" my computer and don't actually have any real friendships. They don't understand how a connection can be formed with someone unless you spend time in their company doing things together, out, and they are concerned that I am addicted to the computer and will never meet "real people". This is despite the fact that they've met several of my online friends, and know that they are in fact real people and that I am perfectly capable of having social interactions in meatspace, as it were. They're always encouraging me to go out to meet people, and even to go out to bars and stuff, and they fret when I spend Friday nights at home chatting instead of out...wherever. And this I just don't understand at all. I mean, I get the necessity for human interaction. I get very very antsy when I don't have interaction with people IRL and I really seek out meetings with people I've met and grown close to online, because it's important for me to have that face to face interaction. But I don't feel like the people I've met here are any less real or, especially, any less important, whereas they seem to feel like internet friends go away when you turn off your computer. Like they're virtual entities or something.
It's very frustrating for me trying to explain to them that the people I've met online have done so much more for me mentally, emotionally, and psychologically than almost any of my friends I've met in other fashions. It's been a part of my life for ten years now, has shaped who I am, and these are the people I basically live with, the ones I talk to every day and spend hours getting to know and sharing experiences with, and the people who are there when I'm sick or sad or depressed or lonely and need someone. They're even the people who would drop everything and come over for me if I needed them to, which is more than I've been able to say for almost any of my RL friends EVER, even when they lived just a couple streets over. This to me is very similar to dorm living where you see these people all the time because you have this...space in common, and you get to know them by default almost, but then you get closer to them via shared experiences and the like, and those people become your family. I can't ever imagine giving that up, and I really hate that my parents regard it as a problem that I have rather than the really wonderful experience that it's been.
Basically the point of all this is that I consider this a real community and it's very important to me, and those of you who I've grown close to are the people who've kept me going all this time, and everyone that I know here has been a really great and enjoyable presence in my life. And in fact the time that I've spent here has made my ability to communicate in person much stronger, and has made me more comfortable with myself as I've sussed out my identity here with your help -- not even that you've necessarily given advice or said amazingly insightful things, though that has happened a lot, but just that you've been here to listen and to share your own experiences in your own journals to read and get me thinking. So thanks, y'all. ♥
I've been computer-savvy since I was about ten, and have been communicating online since I was thirteen. We had a family computer and all, and dial-up, and I spent time hanging around in chat rooms etc. and emailing until I figured out instant messaging when I was about fifteen, and then I used that as a mode of communication through the last two years of highschool at a boarding school, all through college (with my roommates too, natch), and now into grad school. Since moving to Toronto, most of my friendships have been conducted entirely online. Between the_leaky, fandom in general, and LiveJournal, most of the people I feel closest to are people I've met online. My issue is that I have a hard time communicating serious personal issues to people because I can't stand them looking at me when I'm baring my soul, at least at first, and it makes it difficult for me to communicate in person until I feel really comfortable with an individual. This is of course a catch 22, because it's nearly impossible to get comfortable with someone until I've bared my soul and known that they are actually seeing what's inside me. All the people I've actually felt close to in the past are people who've known me for YEARS and in most cases lived with me long enough to see me break and my walls come down, and then have been there to help put me back together. The thing I like about friendships founded online is that I can share those things with people and know then that they still like me and care about me, and then when I meet them in person, I automatically feel closer to them because I know they're actually seeing the real me rather than the façade it is customary for me to put on.
I realise this poses its problems as well, since it makes it a lot harder for me to make friends with people in person, though that is still feasible. I just have a hard time clicking with people I meet through school or work or whatever. But I think this has alway been the case, since I have a hard time really opening up to people in the first place. This is just the result of belonging to a subculture, I think, and Harry Potter fandom and slash and the like are really all subcultures. I find myself holding my tongue a LOT when interacting with my colleagues and people I meet through other venues because you just can't talk about how you spent two hours last night writing Harry giving it to Draco up the bum. And while that's not the sum of who I am, the fact is, I'm alternative as far as my mindset on things and my interests and the things I'm comfortable with.
I think it's also odd because most people my age are going out to clubs and bars and the like and that's how they're meeting people. That's really not my scene at all, especially since I don't drink and I don't much like going out alone to places like that, and so my point of reference is, again, different. So really a lot of the time I feel like I just don't click with the people around me because they have very different interests and priorities, and I can have fun conversations with them, but I don't ever feel like I get close enough to them to form a real, deep friendship. Here, I've met a lot of people through fandom because they share similar interests, yes, but more importantly a similar mindset, and so all of my closest friends are people I communicate with nearly entirely online.
My parents, however, do not understand this at ALL. They think that because I'm not interacting with people face to face, I am lacking in social skills and "hiding behind" my computer and don't actually have any real friendships. They don't understand how a connection can be formed with someone unless you spend time in their company doing things together, out, and they are concerned that I am addicted to the computer and will never meet "real people". This is despite the fact that they've met several of my online friends, and know that they are in fact real people and that I am perfectly capable of having social interactions in meatspace, as it were. They're always encouraging me to go out to meet people, and even to go out to bars and stuff, and they fret when I spend Friday nights at home chatting instead of out...wherever. And this I just don't understand at all. I mean, I get the necessity for human interaction. I get very very antsy when I don't have interaction with people IRL and I really seek out meetings with people I've met and grown close to online, because it's important for me to have that face to face interaction. But I don't feel like the people I've met here are any less real or, especially, any less important, whereas they seem to feel like internet friends go away when you turn off your computer. Like they're virtual entities or something.
It's very frustrating for me trying to explain to them that the people I've met online have done so much more for me mentally, emotionally, and psychologically than almost any of my friends I've met in other fashions. It's been a part of my life for ten years now, has shaped who I am, and these are the people I basically live with, the ones I talk to every day and spend hours getting to know and sharing experiences with, and the people who are there when I'm sick or sad or depressed or lonely and need someone. They're even the people who would drop everything and come over for me if I needed them to, which is more than I've been able to say for almost any of my RL friends EVER, even when they lived just a couple streets over. This to me is very similar to dorm living where you see these people all the time because you have this...space in common, and you get to know them by default almost, but then you get closer to them via shared experiences and the like, and those people become your family. I can't ever imagine giving that up, and I really hate that my parents regard it as a problem that I have rather than the really wonderful experience that it's been.
Basically the point of all this is that I consider this a real community and it's very important to me, and those of you who I've grown close to are the people who've kept me going all this time, and everyone that I know here has been a really great and enjoyable presence in my life. And in fact the time that I've spent here has made my ability to communicate in person much stronger, and has made me more comfortable with myself as I've sussed out my identity here with your help -- not even that you've necessarily given advice or said amazingly insightful things, though that has happened a lot, but just that you've been here to listen and to share your own experiences in your own journals to read and get me thinking. So thanks, y'all. ♥