I'm all out of sorts. I'm tired of hearing how much more important face to face relationships are compared to online ones. It seems to be a thread of discussion that's going around like a virus these days. I'm tired of having my friends and my relationships with them down graded into virtual bits and bytes, tired of having people feel sorry for me because they think I don't have a real life, or think that what I have to offer is less important because I can't be in the same room with them.
I am real, and I believe the people I connect with online are real too. There's a flesh and blood person sitting at a computer in California, or Florida, or in England, or even in Timbuktu that I haven't met yet, who thinks and feels, has a heart and a soul, who laughs, and cries, feels happiness and sadness, ... just like I do. And just because I can't see the flesh and blood part doesn't mean what we share isn't as valid as it would be if I could.
Why do people think that face to face relationships are more meaningful and important? It is true, that if I could be in the same room with the friends I've made online, it would be much more fulfilling. There are many things that you miss out on because of the limitations of an online relationship, but that doesn't make them any less important, valid, or meaningful. It just makes you feel sad sometimes, is all. And that's a small price to pay for the joys of getting to know and loving someone that you would otherwise never have had the chance to, if wasn't for the very computer your are are sitting in front of now.
I wouldn't trade any of the friendships I've made online, for a dozen face to face shallower ones simply because I could have with them, what I can't have with the connections I've made online. Maybe it's just me, but what I value in someone has very little to do with their zip code, or their vicinity.
Well said Dar QRx
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree with you. But you knew that didn't you:-)
ReplyDeleteIn my tiny life I would never have met so many different people who all share a common bond. And I don't care what anyone says. They are real friends.
Someone left this link on my blog and I think she puts it well
Go here
xx
Here, Here, m'dear (God a blinking rhyme :) Is there no end to my talent! ;-) (I jest a lot by the way) TFx
ReplyDeleteMany of us here are a testament to how strong and real friendships made on line can be. Meeting in reality is a wonderful bonus. *waves to Lane*
ReplyDeleteThank you Rose. :)
ReplyDeleteYep, I knew you agreed with me Lane. More accurately I suppose we should be saying I agree with you since your post came first ( http://laneswrite.blogspot.com/2009/01/feeling.html ) and the amount of comments on your blog really backs up your fourth point, which is very nice to know. :) Thanks for the link. btw, how did you get it to work in a comment post? I haven't figured that out yet.
Hey TF, Here, Here's good, feels like I just got a glass raised to me. :) no kidding about the jesting. (Grin) ... Just give me about a month or so, and I'll be saying blinking something or other. :)
Helen, I was playing it safe posting such a tirade on blogger. I knew I was in good company, :) I just needed to vent.
Waving to each of you; Damn why you folks have to live so far away anyway.
(((((HUGS))))
Each person's relationships are their own. They are totally individual to that one person. The meanings and connections and emotions they feel are theirs. Regardless of how they are formed, through what medium they take place etc. If blogland, the internet, phones, text etc help us to meet with others, to communicate our inner most thoughts and feelings- to connect, sometimes, like Dar says with people thousands of miles away then fucking brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI have shared so many discussions, learnt so much more about myself, and feel I met people in blogland who "really get me"
Dar- glad you're back- in fighting form!
BB
X
Very well said, but I must add something...it's good to have balance of some sort in life, which means we need face to face relationships too. And the reason for this is that if we have a face to face friend we have someone who can see us, see if we are becoming unbalanced. Online friends are fantastic but it's easy for them not to notice if we are isolating or binge-drinking or whatever it is we might do when no one is around.
ReplyDelete(Using my self for an example, can you tell?)
Found myself getting too comfortable with online friendships and went out with the express intent of making a face to face friend. It has taken four attempts in a year but this last one seems to be a keeper. And well worth the effort.
So...just my two cents...online is great, but like I said, we need someone who knows us and can see us, someone we can call up and ask out for coffee or movies or a walk when things are difficult or when things are good.
I'll shut up now!
Funny that you should say that Zed, because an online friend having said basically the same thing, and my reaction to it, is why I wrote this blog post. I don't have face to face friends. I don't know what the reason for that is, it just hasn't happened for me for about twenty or more years. I lived in an isolated community before I moved here to be with my partner, and now I feel just as isolated in the city of Victoria. I just don't seem to click with the people I meet here, and it's now been ten years since I've moved.
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't for this computer and the connections I've made through it, I think I'd probably have gone off the deep end a long time ago, because the loneliness I felt was so incredible I couldn't bear it anymore. Making those connections has been nothing less than a godsend to me, and I value them more than anyone could know. So when someone tells me that my life is bits... even when I consider that someone my best friend, and maybe even more so because I do consider her my best friend, it cuts to the quick.
Far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong with getting comfortable with online friends, because the alternative is that there aren't any. (deleted and then edited for clarity)
fucking brilliant is right Butch! :)
ReplyDeleteWell...what can I say.
ReplyDeleteI prayed to God to send me someone who I would love and who would love me back at the ripe old age of 39. I said...''I don't care what he looks like or where he lives...Richie is lovely to look at but when I dared to look on his profile at where he lived, my stomach dropped...the USA...only four and a half thousand miles away!
I never dreamed I would hop and a plane and go and meet him, but he was everything and more... all that I had dreamed of...
With online relationships, you have to talk...you get to know the other person much better.
As long as each party is honest...it can and does work. It has its difficulties but what relationship doesn't.
Thanks for checking out my hamster video. Yes, when Elliot was out of the cage one time, Fizz lunged with teeth bared!!!! I grabbed him quick...luckily.
Dearest Dar, I hope you feel we are friends even though we have never met and maybe we might never, but whose to say;-) I live in a small village in England and as you know I work full-time, if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have found so many writing friends who I can chat to over a cuppa about writing.
ReplyDeleteJust like any other friends my online writers' party is a big and important part of my life. I enjoy dropping in on your life and sharing a small part of it with you so keep on smiling and wrting, until next time ((Hugs)) and remember even though we are miles apart we are there for each other in our bloggers world.
Annie
Ellen, I met my partner online, and we've been together now for ten years ... We had some rough spots, but now we are very happy together. I agree with you one hundred percent about how developing a relationship online means you have to talk, and that you get to know someone very well because of that. But there are things that you miss out on, like for instance, the person's expression or body language when they tell you something. ... I'm not meaning to take the wind out of your sails, by no means, because I'm a firm believer that what's online can be just as meaningful as what can be face to face, and maybe more so because of the exchange of thoughts and ideas. But there is a whole set of communication tools not available to us, and we don't always know what we are missing. So in my opinion, you don't necessarily get to know someone better online, just differently. I prefer the type of exchange that happens online compared to what usually happens face to face, words obviously have a lot of meaning for me, ... but wouldn't it be perfect if you could have both?
ReplyDeleteThank you Annie. :) ... I've only been on blogger for what, two months? Before that I would feel a bit silly when I called myself a writer, even to myself. But just last night at a dinner party, when I was asked what I did, I didn't pause, I didn't stop and think what I should say, I told them straight out that I was writer. Just two months of reading about what other writers though and felt, and how they lived their lives, Just two months of their kind words of support and acceptance of me, has been enough for me to be able to say, yeah, I know these people I can identify with them. They're my people. And what do you know, I'm a writer too.... :)