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

[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}