Just left a "frienly" discord server.

FakeSympathy

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Already posted on reddit, but also wanted to post here since no one from said server check out this forum.

I had been part of this discord server for god knows how long. And to be honest, I met some great people there, some I came to know IRL. I am really not the person to socialize, and this channel really helped me re-kindle my love for being part of a community. It made it easy to laugh, stream, or just talk about non-sensical things with the members of the server.

But for the past few years, our interest began to change. More specifically, the games that the rest of the members started to play weren't really my type. 90% of the time they got online to play Valorant. While I do not care or judge over what games people tend to play, Valorant is a game I refuse to get back into. I don't have fun at all with that game, nor do I see myself improving. And because of that, I feel I was only holding the rest of the team back, and they didn't have to carry my noob ass or deal with my angry attitude. So I gave up on grouping up with them.

And even if I join the call just to be there w/o playing and just to talk, I feel I'm that unnecessary voice during each match. I can certainly mute myself, but I feel that defeats the whole purpose of joining the call in the first place.

When they aren't playing Valorant, they are streaming other games or movies, which again aren't exactly to my taste. I felt like an outcast for the past few years, with no one seeming to care or even show at least a little bit of reaction to what I was doing. It was expected, as I couldn't force them to watch what I did or play together with the game I was interested in.

Our active hours were different too. These guys gamed all night and slept during the day while I was active during day going about my business, occasionally checking in on the server. I would see all these posts from the night before which may have been hilarious to the context of what happened, but I wasn't there so I don't get the significance of these posts.

I would sometimes browse the internet and find articles filled with radical-liberal agendas or femi-nazi ideals, post them on the server and made comments on how ridiculous the ideas were. These were things that no rational person would think are good ideas. Yet, there were people on the server who thought the arguments made on the articles were justified, and even called be a "bigoted, sexist, racist" idiot for how dare I was to question the new way of the world (actual word)

But my biggest issue was this one guy, "Sammy", who decided to be a complete asshole. It didn't matter what I said or did, nor how dumb or intelligent they were. Sammy always found ways to bully me and made me into a complete joke. People of the server told me Sammy does this to everyone, but I doubt that. As I sometimes joined the call with him on the line, I saw him treat everyone else with at least some bit of dignity. I could've called him out on many occasions, but he would've simply made me look like an idiot again. And for whatever reason, everyone loved having Sammy on the call.

To put a cherry on the top, everyone acted as if nothing had happened after a little fallout between me and Sammy. It happened more than once. I don't know if they were simply ignoring me or was trying to move on, but nobody, not even once, talked or asked about how I felt, even though I voiced several times how I felt mistreated.

For a server with TOS which talked about respecting each other and having fun, I sure as hell didn't feel either towards myself, at least for the last few years. It's a real shame because as I've said at the beginning of the post I made lots of connections on this server, and even they wouldn't convince me to stay. I knew once I left the server there was no coming back, and I will go back to feeling lonely again. But I also knew it was an oil and water situation, where interests and even political ideals had become completely different. But it was me vs the entire server, and I simply felt I didn't have the energy to get them to listen to me.

IF they truly cared, they probably would've reached out via DM or invite me back. It's been just over 16 hours since my depature and I haven't heard from them once
 

Xprimentyl

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Welcome to the Internet.

The connections we think we make in these anonymous forums/servers are just that: anonymous connections. Sure, I have plenty of people I'm able to connect with on a variety of subjects, but never once do I expect that relationship to be indicative of anything beyond the immediate commonality, and therefore, don't make much of them. Not that I don't value them, but I recognize when they potentially/inevitably change, I'm owed nothing. I stay cordial, respectful, appreciate the time we have together, but I understand first and foremost that any online "relationship" is quite fluid in that circumstances could change at any moment, and any value I've placed on those relationships is subject to bandwidth in several literal and figurative ways.

Back in the early 2000s, I was a part of a group formed on GameSpot of "Mature" gamers, basically anyone roughly over 25, that wanted camaraderie with fellow gamers who didn't want to deal with the toxicity of younger gamers and their penchant for rudeness, name-calling and harassment within our shared hobby. We stuck together for YEARS, arranged regular game nights where we'd play together, hell, a couple of our members actually fell in love and got married inviting any of us available in our group to attend the wedding in real life. I personally have only met two of them in person when they were in my city a few years ago, and it actually felt like I was meeting old friends for the first time.

BUT... I understand things change. Our regular game nights fell off as our interests diverged. Some of us just stopped participating in the group activities, others invited new people in who just didn't "fit" the spirit of our clique. Then real life stepped in, and as we attended to our adult duties, our group of gaming took a back seat from which it never returned. I'm not mad. I mad a lot of good friends. We're friends on social media; we still exchange texts on holidays, or check in when we think some significant gaming news merits the casual conversation, but NONE of us defined our relationship as anything more than cursory. Not that we didn't value the bonds we formed, but we realized that we'd change over time and that was okay.

My advice, take it as you please, is to focus on making connections with people you can see every day. Try to make some friends in real life. The moment you tether your mental health and well being to made-up names and profile pictures on one of any thousands of sites/servers, you've lost something deeply human. It's too easy to pretend online, and when that pretentiousness starts to affect you and your actual life (not to be confused with any online personae,) it's time to take a step back and reassess.

TL;DR? It sucks that you've lost connections you once valued, but there are deeper, more healthy connections to be had.
 
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Drathnoxis

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I've never liked discord. It feels way too personal to talking to people in real time. Just forget about social interaction and play more video games.
 

Piscian

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I still havent really figured out how Discord communities work. I've only ever been invited to one hosted by a few friends I work with that I've known for around 10 years. I struggle with a lot of introversion and insecurity so Ive never tried to "seek out" other discord communities. I'm sure theres some around that more suit your personality and hours. Probably somewhere to post on reddit to ask. Then again I'm tired today so I don't know if this is meant to be a discussion or you just needed to rant about how some people are dicks.

As I get older I find myself coming home from work and just wanting to play offline games, actively avoiding online communities it just feels like every popular online game is more of a chore than something casual. My friends lately have been busy with family shit so they only log on to play quick CS:GO Comp matches which is a bit too stressful for my taste.

My biggest complaint is the death of user hosted casual servers in most FPS games. I was at my happiest I think back when CS: Source "only" had community servers which all had their own websites, gaming group and whatever we used before discord.. teamspeak and ventrilo. What you logged on to play casual matches or just casual play because there was a huge mod map community you could see the same group of people regularly and there was no pressure to be good or carry or whatever, half of us were drunk and half the maps were just halloween houses or one room 64 person maps where everyone just throw grenades and we die at once and laugh.

I think MP gaming has reached peak instant gratification with closed P2P game structures that don't actively facilitate community building. I had a really good time playing Outriders. I think it got a really bad rep with the poor launch co-op, when it worked was an absolutely joy and perfectly designed to build friendships. However I ran into someone who befriended me and they took great pains to find me when I was online and play, but the game lacked any form of functional chat or voice. You could kind of add people on steam, but it would have been much better if they had just allowed people to host goddamn servers instead of shitty broken p2p.
 

BrawlMan

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As I get older I find myself coming home from work and just wanting to play offline games, actively avoiding online communities it just feels like every popular online game is more of a chore than something casual.
This, but I'll do online co-op for some games. I never used Discord, and most likely never will. Not my thing.
 

Vault101

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I would sometimes browse the internet and find articles filled with radical-liberal agendas or femi-nazi ideals, post them on the server and made comments on how ridiculous the ideas were. These were things that no rational person would think are good ideas. Yet, there were people on the server who thought the arguments made on the articles were justified, and even called be a "bigoted, sexist, racist" idiot for how dare I was to question the new way of the world (actual word)
There is a possibility either these "radical" ideas you're laughing at aren't actually that radical to a lot of people or even if they were ridiculous/extreme hating on the "SJW's" 2016 style can alienate some people. I sure as heck get super uncomfortable at that kind of content. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum isn't not healthy to get obsessed with caricatures of people for whomst you disagree with politically.,

But yeah, people go different directons. This isn't even specific to discord servers and it sucks if it was one source of socialization/connection for you.
 
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Satinavian

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If interests diverge and you decide to leave a group then that is nothing strange. Don't harbor bad feelings for them for not trying to make you stay. If you recognized you don't really fit anymore, others might have seen the same. And even otherwise, respecting your decision does not mean they don't like you.

You have formed other connections to some of them. You could try keeping those even aside from the server. If you value them. If not, well...
 
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