Friendless

[Mikkel]

I talked with my doctor about this once, and she said that online friends are as good as RL friend. Even though it sets a limit in our social life, as we can't hang out with them in RL. So never underestimate good online friends (or pen pals, gaming friends etc).

I do often talk about people as friends, as it's more easy to say than just "people I hang around a couple of times a year". Mostly I don't have human contact besides coworkers and talking to the people in the store. But I have good people online that I do treasure more than most of the people I hang around from time to time. I had one winter I didn't see one single person outside of the store or work for four months...

I've never had a best friend. I don't know how it works to have a best friend. One person that always will give you the priority. Trying to plan something with people are often just the feeling "we can hang out if none other can"....

 

[Mikkel]

To be honest. I think that people here are much more supporting than most people in RL. You know you can come here when the days are though. Or to share joys. If you're going to a break up. Or is ill. Getting a new puppy. Or going on a trip. And here we can even just scroll past someone having a bad day, but still support them.

 

[shyvas]

I talked with my doctor about this once, and she said that online friends are as good as RL friend. Even though it sets a limit in our social life, as we can't hang out with them in RL. So never underestimate good online friends (or pen pals, gaming friends etc).

I do often talk about people as friends, as it's more easy to say than just "people I hang around a couple of times a year". Mostly I don't have human contact besides coworkers and talking to the people in the store. But I have good people online that I do treasure more than most of the people I hang around from time to time. I had one winter I didn't see one single person outside of the store or work for four months...

I've never had a best friend. I don't know how it works to have a best friend. One person that always will give you the priority. Trying to plan something with people are often just the feeling "we can hang out if none other can"....

I think that luck has a large part to play in it. Some people have best friends and others have never had one. I have a cousin who is in her 50's and she still has a best friend since high school.

Best Friends

 

[Mikkel]

I think that luck has a large part to play in it. Some people have best friends and others have never had one. I have a cousin who is in her 50's and she still has a best friend since high school.

Best Friends

Yeah. As a kid, you develop a lot of friendship based on where you live. So you need to live close by a person that you will have enough in common with to become a best friend.

I don't have contact in RL with anyone I went to school with and only two of them on Facebook.

 

[shyvas]

Yeah. As a kid, you develop a lot of friendship based on where you live. So you need to live close by a person that you will have enough in common with to become a best friend.

I don't have contact in RL with anyone I went to school with and only two of them on Facebook.

That is more or less true with my cousin as she lives around 50 minutes away from her BF. However, my other pal who met her BF at uni in France has lived on the other side of the world from her one.
Indeed, her BF moved to Los Angeles when she was in her 20's and they've always kept in touch. Both of them are now in their 60's.

 

[Tom L.]

Friends- good friends- are important... I think they can be as important to our well-being as our family.

Speaking for myself: I think I work against myself sometimes. I really do care about people generally, and even more when I have something in common with them (we're related... or we have similar attitudes toward animals... etc.) But I have tendency to be in my own little world... actually, I tend to be self-absorbed. This causes two problems, which are related: in not paying as much attention to people as I should, and as I want to, I find them harder to understand. And I find it harder to maintain relationships with people than I think it should be.

About on-line friendships, such as we have here: the first two on-line communities (both message boards) I belonged to were a forum for people who had hamsters as pets ("All About Hamsters") and a website owned and operated by PetSmart/Acme Pets, which had a number of boards focussing on specific interests (cats, dogs, small animals/rodents, the famously wild and heated "Animal Advocacy" board...). This was back in 1999 or 2000. (I set up an account with VB around that time but didn't spend much time there until quite some time later.) Anyway, some PetsMart members set up their own website... and a few people from there set up THEIR website / message boards... and one after the other, they folded. I wasn't devastated, exactly, but it seemed like I felt the loss of those "friends" without ever having had the benefits of interacting with someone face-to-face. Or maybe they seemed more "gone" because I had no way to find them in real-life... and if I had found them, maybe it would have creeped them out.

Anyhow. I'd miss VB or VV if they folded, but after my previous experiences, I'm reluctant to rely on them to a great extent for social interaction or connections.