Poll: Internet friendship?

[DeltaEdge]

Although I enjoy gaming with people online, they are still strangers, even if they are my friends. And I think they feel the same. If I stop playing a game, then whoever I played that game with I no longer see anymore. They go with the game I guess you could say. I don't try to stay in any particular contact with people from an old game I played.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

They're, y'know, actual people themselves. So, yes, they're kinda important.

And I won't name anyone, those bitches know who they are.

 

[Outright Villainy]

I don't have anywhere near as much online frinds as meatspace ones, but there are a couple I talk to nearly every day, so yes I'd absolutely consider them important. It does seem to be a rare thing for me though, when I say a couple I mean that literally: two people. But if I talk to them, and enjoy doing so, it'd be silly not to consider that an important friendship.

 

[Substitute Troll]

A wise man once said that the best type of friend you could ever have is someone you can do absolutely nothing with and still have a great time.

By this definition it shouldn't matter if they are online or offline friends.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Some are just people I know, others are friends. Some I've talked to for years and due to it not being face to face I've told them some things I wouldn't tell offline friends.

 

[chowderface]

I'm much better friends with my internet friends than I am with my meatspace friends.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I like all of them, I just don't know the in-person ones quite as well as I do the internet ones and we tend not to hang out as much.

Also, for the bulk of my life my parents have lived way out in the sticks, so A) before I moved out for college the internet was pretty much the only meaningful social interaction I got on a regular basis, and B) having moved back in with them after graduation while I try to find a job I'm back in the same boat because none of my friends are within driving distance, except the ones I met at college who I don't hang out with all that much.

 

[Powereaver]

very much so ive had some of them since i was 14 years old and without them i would probably have been dead many years ago due to a severe depressive slump i was going through due to lonliness mixed in with other stuff.. i consider some of my internet friends some of my best friends i will ever have

 

[dyre]

I have a few online friends who I like a lot, I think my friendship with them isn't as, uh, "full" as it is with my friends IRL. I know my real world friends a lot better than I do my online ones, even those I've been with for longer than some real world friends.

Also, this

I've met many people who i knew online for a long time who suddenly turned out to be childish teenagers. It's very hard to judge people online.

It's very easy for an adolescent to seem to be mature and likable while shooting zombies / talking about ponies with you, but once you get to known them better outside the context of a video game / discussion board, things can change pretty quickly

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

My online friends used to be better friends than the ones i saw at school everyday. I could talk to them a lot easier.

Now i'm socially damned and don't talk to anyone really xD

 

[Talshere]

I dont see why they cant be "real" friends. Given the tech we have to communicate these days 3000 miles is only 2 seconds lag. I have friends I have never met. I have standing invitations from several to visit.

I tend to find that with Friends I make on games that if one of both of us move away from the game the friendship breaks down, but even now I have people on my MSN and Facebook I met through Space Invasion and WoW. Even through LoL. We still comment on posts occasionally and ***** and moan about game related issues and our past addictions (Screw wow, anyone who has never played a game like Ogame or Space Invasion has NO IDEA what a game addiction is).

I even have one guy whom neither of us can recall how we have each other on MSN. Just that we do and we both like reading Fantasy and Sci Fy.


I know for a fact that several online communities have annual get togethers. They club up rent a hall and everyone flys in for a weekend. My old clan on CoD4 used to. As did the White Tower community and my Ogame Alliance Trouble With Tribbles.

 

[Vault101]

depnds...I mean its very easy on the internet to find people with similar interests, and I always enjoy talking

I am however, very wary of getting "personal" with people on the internet, I think its just somthing I had drilled into me from a young age of "internet safty"

Id never give too many personal details or whatever, I guess its harmless enough if you play it safe, plus its easyer to talk about certain things (and I dont get my words mixed up or trail off and de-rail the conversation like I do in real life somtimes)

 

[Something Amyss]

You are nothing but a collection of avatars and text to me!

...Okay, maybe not.

 

[Vault101]

Does anyone besides me find it worrying that so many people are saying they prefer internet friends or that's all they have? It seems so....sad. I wonder if that speaks to a connection between being on the Escapist and having some sort of personality disorder. And I don't mean that as an insult, I'm thinking of all the people who have come forward and self identified in past threads relating to personality disorders that make it hard to make friends in rl, but might make it easier with an internet filter.

well I mean its just easyer to indentify with people on the internet because there are SO many barriers that arnt there

so yeah, if you fit a certain personality type (disorder or otherwise) then of coarse you might find it easyer with online freinds

personally, I dont think its quite the same as somone you can see/interact with in real life, peopel can come across alot different through text (not sure about video/chat though)

 

[JaceArveduin]

Yeah, I put them pretty high, seeing as I've been fucking around with them across multiple online games for the past... Gorloggs beard, it's been at least 5 years. I only know a few people I've personally met that I've stayed friends with for that long.

*I should add that I've traveled more than a little during these past 7 years, and I don't keep friends well if it's just talkin over the phone or such every week or so

 

[Ranthus]

Some of them.
As in, out of all 72 Steam friends I don't actually know in real life, I care about and talk to less than ten of them.

 

[Zantos]

They're important to me, but I wouldn't say someone I meet on the internet is as important as someone I know in real life.

 

[The Man With the Soap]

So by that logic, if you met your onling friends in real life, they would automatically become boring and/or annoying by sheer virtue of the fact that you are face-to-face with them.

If everyone you've met in real life is boring/annoying, you aren't making much effort to actually get out there and meet people.

People online are much easier to ignore, much like I'm going to do now.

You have my pity, sir.