Thoughts on friendship, with political and fandom remarks along the way, and a semi-religious coda

[celandineb]

[Not filtering because it's not really about politics or religion, just using some examples from politics, and the religious bit is a link at the end

Comments

[celandineb]

Common alienation, as it were, rather than common interests? *nods* I think common interests are helpful and likely to be one of the initial factors (certainly online), but alone they're not enough. As you say, if that's all there is and one person's interests change, then the friendship is likely to end (and I'm not sure that a real, good friendship is based on a single thing).

While in several cases, meeting in real life has cemented a friendship that I think would have flourished in real life with greater proximity, in several other cases it made me realize that apart from loving some common interest or other, I didn't have much to say to the person and vice versa.

Oh goodness yes. *g* I always feel kind of badly when that's happened -- I want to feel more comfortable and friendly, because I've liked the person's online engagement, but in person there isn't that click, and I regret that. But then I suppose that if I'd come into contact with the person first in-person, and no click happened, I wouldn't have gotten to know them at all and might have missed out on some interesting conversations, or whatever.

[thrihyrne]

Common alienation, as it were, rather than common interests?

Just ducking in, as this is a very interesting topic, and I've missed being on LJ!

I do think that for me, it's nearly 50/50 in common alienation and common interests in a friend. I do know that I'm better at cultivating friendships that don't require or have expectations of real-life and real-time commitments, but I'd like to think that once I'm more at peace with myself, that those relationships will come back into being. Right now I don't feel I'm up to them, and hence, I don't foster many. Many of my online friendships have been in existence for several years (grins) and have sometimes been made a bit stronger by meeting, and others have made them a bit more strained. Still others I see as integral even though I've not met the person in real life... I do think that geographic proximity is overrated, and I felt that even before I was online. I think it's because I moved a lot, then even my few close adult friends in my late 20s and early 30s moved away from me, so it was a repeat of my childhood. There are times I miss real time hugs and conversations about things I care about, both real life and my obsessive writing, in real time with the person bodily there. But phone calls help assuage that, and I love to write letters.

Intriguing topic!

[celandineb]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the post. And yeah, I agree it can be extremely variable between different people... both in the factors that enable friendship to begin, and how and why it continues. {{hugs}