The Leg-Biting Bitch Hates Your Precious Fucking Real World

[naamah_darling]

The problem with the myth of the socially-inept gamer/internet user who allows their social skills to atrophy because they spend too much time in a fantasy world is that it is a PILE OF SHIT.

Look, with as many human beings as we've crammed onto the planet, I'm sure these people do exist. Though seldom articulated, there's an asshole corollary to

Comments

[swevene]

When I was in group therapy a few years ago, we talked about my dependence on the internet for socialization. At first they were quite critical, until I started pointing out that I didn't have the support network anywhere else that I did online- and when they started questioning whether my internet friends were really my friends, they sure did get a fairly snippy several remarks on how my internet friends encouraged me to get help to begin with.

After that I don't think it ever really came up again, though the people who suggested it did apologize for saying my friends weren't my friends.

[gothicbeauty21]

That was my mother's argument when I was a teenager spending time online with "friends" - "If you can't look them in the eye, they can't be a friend."

Bullshit.

If it hadn't been for my friends online, I would have killed myself as a teenager. MY IRC friends (who I am friends on FaceBook with, these days) helped stop me from two suicide attempts in late high school/early college.

I met my husband in WoW. Most of my closest friends came through people I met online, and then was able to hook up with locally. It's just always been easier for me to network through the internet, than through actual people.

And now, my friends know me as "the girl who knows EVERYONE". I can put them in touch with people all over the globe, over one small little detail. Or if I can't find exactly what they need, I can put them in touch with someone who can. And that makes me feel good about myself.

[perlmonger]

Yes.

I'm actually getting a bit better at meatspace interaction now, in my mid-50s, but most of my life: this. Yes, I'm broken, but not for the reasons I've been told through my life by a succession of self-righteous shits; that I've mended at all, slowly and uncertainly, is thanks to people I've met on and through the internets and its precursors.

I'm once again glad you're out there Amanda: take care.

[lady_fox]

Yes. And thank you!

[syncopated_time]

CO-FUCKING-SIGNED.

[siliconshaman]

Word!