October 24, 2011
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Xanga Friendships
You ever notice that it is so easy to gain friendships but also lose friendships on the Internet?
Take xanga for instance. You might find a connection with someone because they shared on their site. Maybe they mentioned their depression or perhaps it was their fight with their spouse. You felt connected and so you made a friendship. Perhaps people are not as open about their problems and struggles in real life the way they are on Xanga.But the reverse is also true. On a place like xanga, a person can’t read the look on your face. They can’t see you laughing. They can’t sense the hurt feelings. So is easier to drop friendships too.
I guess it sounds strange to have a sense of loss for a friendship that you only had on the Internet.
Have you ever felt bad about the loss of a friendship of someone you only knew on the Internet?
Comments (80)
Absolutely. Friends are friends are friends.
I’ve felt bad about many things on the Internet. So yes.
Yes.
I’ve never lost a friendship because EVERYONE LOVES ME. That’s what I tell myself when I cry myself to sleep every night after eating Twinkies.
Absolutely. Had to drop a Xanga friend hard yesterday.
I’ve only had two friends on here. I met one of them over the summer, we really dig each other and he’s visiting me here in a few weeks
The other one I’ve known for years, she’s a cool cat.
Yep, definitely.
People come and go, but some people can get into your heart. I’ve never really lost a casual friend that I had from the internet, but I’ve lost a few good friends that I made online to death. One was Russ (and at present his xanga name escapes me), but we started talking on xanga and then email and struck up a friendship where we even spoke a few times on the phone. He sent me postcards from his trips, and would donate to support me in the Climb to Conquer Cancer. The whole time, he was battling cancer. He told me he was sick, but never told me HOW sick he was. When I didn’t hear from him for a while, I reached out via email with no answer. Then I got a card in the mail from his friend who found my address in his book and she told me he had passed away. That still gets to me. He was an important part of my life, a good friend. And now he’s gone. I still miss him very much.
Yes, because although we can’t see one another in person, we’re most likely sharing a deeper part of ourselves that people IRL never see.
I don’t think I’ve lost friendships, but I feel bad whenever someone I’ve connected with leaves xanga.
I’ve never had to drop a Xanga friend before. Well not one I’ve never met anyways.
I’ve never been that close to someone on Xanga, but I do miss some people when they go.
Yes, definitely.
Oh yes I have been left very sad at the loss of a xanga friend
I don’t come here to make friends. I come here to write. But if one pops in, then it’s cool. But honestly I have maybe ONE person I consider a long term friend on xanga.
I have found that on Xanga most people crave 100% agreement with a passion. If you don’t meet that craving you get dumped. I didn’t come to Xanga to serve that kind of craving. So I doubt whether I’ll be staying much longer.
Things come and go. Just like IRL. Also, babies get born and, sadly, friends pass away.
I’ve never ended a friendship here, but I’ve had some that I considered to be friends leave. Come to think of it, that’s kind of how it works for me in real life, too. Sad.
no, I haven’t felt bad, because there’s more where they came from and I can easily make a new friend. no big deal to me.
People on Xanga seem more real than mofos that walk on my sidewalk.
They keep treating me like trash, like it’s all my fault I am mentally disabled. I ignore their attacks on my weaknesses, they keep attacking without remorse, I show patience, their attacks are relentless, probing for more weaknesses in my character. ”You are weak.” Is the message of each blow. I feed their egos with my complete moronic incompetence. ” There is no god for you.” They laugh. ” Karma! Karma!” they chant.
I swallow my pride. It’s not that I believe my life is rich and valuable, I just don’t like complaining. What hurts me the most is the sex I will never have. I am horny everyday, my body was meant for sex, yet this meaning of life is forbidden to me. ” Hahaha, is there a heaven?” they ask. One chance at life, that one chance wasted. Even so, I am fine. I am fine be there no god. When I am dead, I will have no regrets. So if there is no god, what is to stop someone from pulling out a gun in public?
It’s not that I believe in god’s grace, but, my insanity does not faze me. I am happy the way I am. I may never know sex, but, there is more to life than sex, to be at peace with oneself, even if you’re insane is much better than a miserable normal woman who sleeps with black guys, has one night stands, treats her body like it belongs to the community, and although whores can enjoy sex, my heart says a woman who treats sex so casually may not go to hell, but it is WRONG, there must be a reason why such behavior should be scorned, yet some hoes can bang two guys a night and feel satisfied with their sex life. Do they have issues, or am I a sore loser for believing sexual restraint is much superior to promiscuity?
No. But i feel a sense of connection with people, and it is possible to sense even impatience or empathy, sincerity, and all sorts of emotions with people on the Internet. It is an amazing phenomenon.
Nope.
I care about all my friends regardless of where or how I meet them. I don’t know. I guess I’ve come to accept that there are people who will come seeking advice and who need help and a friend for a season and when they no longer are in need, they toss aside the obsolete friendship like one would an old bandage. This is sad, yes, but more bittersweet. After all, when it means the person no longer requires the listening ear of a stalwart friend, one can hardly blame them for wanting to talk less to those who they have some to see themselves as relying on or who simply remind them of things they wish to leave behind. As for those who fall out of touch, it happens. I suppose if it were important enough to them they would typically find a way but sometimes we can have a much higher opinion of what we think they should think than is reality and then sometimes, people just neglect to keep in touch without any real reason. It is what it is. People are and will be people.
Yes. I’ve lost at least one friendship in which I held the other person in quite high regard. However, shitty people do shitty things, and as a result, they and I are no longer on speaking terms.
Yes I have.I don’t make friends as quickly on Xanga now though because so many create a xanga just to spy on people and not be true as to who they are.My trust in people on Xanga has gone way down but there are still some folks on here I love to death and I have never even met them.
Yes i do. I feel awful.
Maybe. I had a couple of really good Xanga friends before but somehow, we just lost the connection. We used to comment on each other’s Xanga everyday but then I don’t know what happen, that connection faded away. Maybe they forgot the good times we had or they already move on with their real life and left Xanga. All that’s left is me. I am the one who’s left alone in this internet world. No one can sense my presence or sense my sadness. I will then become a internet stranger and this whole friend process will start over again. At last, you can only count on yourself even in this virtual world. You came to virtual world so that you won’t be alone but it’s just so easy to leave without saying goodbye here.
Don’t you agree?
Do you have this experience like mine?
YES! YES! YES! ha.
I have never been good enough friends with anyone I have lost on the internet, so no. But my best friend of all time is on the internet, so I would obviously be devastated if I lost them.
of course…some of my freinds from xanga have left this world and it hurt a lot…there are some that just don’t use xanga any more…smile
I lost someone on fb that I feel a little bad about but it’s not like losing a real life friend.
@GodlessLiberal - Who did you have to drop? We want names!
There are a few people who I followed on Xanga and when they left I left a loss even though I never knew them in real life.
@musterion99 - No way am I intentionally adding to Xanga drama. It’s bad enough that I find myself caught up in it or the target of it.
@GodlessLiberal - Send me a message.
It depends on the relationship. If it was someone I actually was interested in, then I would feel bad. But most of the time, the people who ended the Xanga friendship are the ones who I stopped reading and never read mine.
oh hell yeah
Kind of.
Always do especially if misunderstandings were involved.
forsure! friends are friends! But sometimes you lose touch. It happens
Yeah.
Yes, it is kind of sad. It’s also puzzling when a few of the really nice women (like my own age) don’t want to respond to friend invitations. It makes me wonder how I’m coming across on Xanga.
In general, middle aged women are the hardest to friend on here. Ran a little experiment about a year ago and the breakdown of who was more “accepting of invites” and those who were least accepting was interesting.
Yep. I did.
What’s strange about feeling bad to lose friendships made “only” on the net? Friendships/ connections have a different form compared to so-called real-life friends, but that doesn’t necessarily makes them less valuable.
Yes, but not often. I’m pretty self contained.
Friendships are like a good book!
Absolutely.
I miss those people sometimes. I mean even if I only knew them on the internet, they’re still people. It’s not like I’m making friends with a machine.
When I first started here on Xanga a young man in Canada became friends with me and my girls. He was smart, witty, and artriculate in so many ways. He helped me with my xanga site and other computer problems I had. He shared his sorrow when his father died. Then after a couple of years he just stopped writing. It was sad to lose him but I’m sure he found real life more time consuming and I am happy for him. Scott Peace to you where ever you are.
I was just kidding, as I’m sure you were (at least a little bit?).
I have a few people from the internet who actually mean something to me.
@RulerofMasons - sometimes i read your comments and wonder if they are purposefully written to give yourself a “history” so you can plead insanity if you go off and actually pull that gun. i hope you get help.
Only once. Mostly cause the person asked for my AOL Im user name, and we talked for a while…and then it just sorta faded.
totally agree…it has happened to me before that I’ve been sort of “dropped”. Sometimes I think I am way too attached to some people on my friends list…it’s like we are not even friends in any other place online, but I think about them often even when I’m not online. I fear that one day they will just delete their sites and forget me. IF they even realized I exist before. I think I “dropped” someone too…I did like her but I guess I didn’t give her the attention I should have given and got deleted. Now I don’t know if I just wasn’t important to her or if it was out of dissapointment and don’t know how to react.
That it’s so hard to really see someone’s emotions here makes me totally awkward too. I am too shy to “ask for more” like facebook, email phone number etc. because if I’m not as important to them, this may not end up pretty. I often feel like a creeper when I realize how much their lives and their comments etc affect me (in a good or bad way), because only weird lonely desperate losers see friends over the internet, according to the cliche, and according to what all “older” people say. I don’t think I am any of that really…and I think it is totally normal to feel attached to someone who is similiar to you, but well, I don’t want to overstep boundaries. I wait for people to make a first ste omehow, but it’s easy to say things you don’t mean like “I’m always there for you” “I love you” so idk how to take it, and I guess others don’t know how to value MY appreciation. I am personally not someone who gets attached soon and has feelings for the other person soon compared to others here apparently.. It’s all very confusing…real life people are easier to handle, but often its all very superficial.
Sort of. I knew a guy on here for five years, but then hung out him in Athens. But then he turned into a complete ass and blocked me because I didn’t want him spontaneously sending me pictures of his crotch behind his girlfriend’s back.
So yes, if the online friendships develop enough. Although the details of the friendship’s end matter, too.
Absolutely. All the time. I’ve had a lot of friends who I would talk to everyday from the myspace days, but I had lost internet for over a year and by the time I managed to get back. Myspace was dead. All my old friends I had either erased me from their friends or simply never got on anymore. I tried getting back into the friendship, but they just didn’t seem to want to be friends anymore. We grew apart over the 1+ year I was away. It bothered me for a long time then and still sorta does when I look back on the memories.
@Composing_Life - I will not openly discuss my motivations, I will do as I please, murder is…. none of your business. I hatethat you told me to get help. Rub it in my face that I must live a subhuman life. I can’t understand why you are trying to put me down. Nonetheless I am happy you are honest,you think I am a piece of shit, and it hurts me, it hurts me damnit, how can normal people be so cruel. How can you step on others and laugh it off? How can you tell me to get help, when you don’t really care about me? Are you stupid?
Thinking of people as ‘only people I met on the internet’ is insensitive and implies that they weren’t really real people – it’s like telling someone whose dog dies “it was only a dog”. I’ve lost and gained friends both on the internet and in real life. Most of the losses though haven’t been from a conscious decision to end the friendship, but more a loss of contact over time. In my nearly 20 years online, I’ve only “blocked” one so-called friend. And he was actually someone I have known for 40 years but lost track of until the internet.
The few Xanga friends I’ve had that have been close enough to me are still my friends here. Others have just drifted apart.
It saddens me.
I have, but they weren’t friends I made on Xanga.
Yes.
I like xanga friendships better because I feel a connection but it’s much more casual than a face-to-face friendship hahaha
Easy come, easy go I guess. I have found that with real life friends as well. Sadly many of the friends I had been connected to when my site was a bit more open to comments have fallen away.
I’m not realy friends with anyone on xanga, but we do comment on each other’s blogs from time to time. I don’t get attached to people over the internet because I don’t make an effort to talk to anyone. I was scared by my mom telling me not to trust people over the web.
so many friends have come and gone on xanga and I miss them
I get a feel for people and I know who I like and I guess they know me,too even with the cold wires of the internet
Of course.
the things about friends is that the commitment of friendship has flexible boundaries. for examle, i don’t expect that my friends call me all the time, and if she dosen’t i should know (and be SO happy for her) that her life is wonderful and busy and that she is still my friend.
friends wax and wain.
i always reflect on the fact that i shouldn’t take things personally, it makes it so much funner anyways.
and no, i’d have to say it isn’t easy to make friends on xanga, well, not for me anyways.
Only a few
@RulerofMasons - i do not think you are a piece of shit at all. i have issues as well and hardly anyone would call me “normal”. of course i didn’t “laugh it off” as you say, and about caring – if i did not care i would not have said what i did. not everybody on here or in the physical world is against you. but comments that you make do raise concerns about your walk on the darkside. could they just be the release of your frustration or could they be more sinister? people die everyday from others who have been hurt too long and decide to take a few others out with them. i felt it was time to say something to you, to “break the ice” and see where you stand. you joined xanga and made yourself known to all for whatever reason. i am now saying “hi, i have no desire for small talk, let’s get to the chase… are you ok?” and yes, i have been called stupid before so if it fits….
Meh, sometimes. =/ It really depends on the kind of friend that person was. I’ve been friends with the same internet friends for almost 9 years and we’ve only met once and I’d be upset if we stopped talking, but people who are just cool to talk to, then meh. Whatever
@Composing_Life - How old are you, where you from, and am I too weird for you, can we be friends?
What’s worse is that you built more than friends relationship with someone you met on the internet who you have not even met in person and even before you can say Jack Robinson, they are gone…never to be heard of again…dumped you…if i can say. Its sad but i wish there was a way to control your heart and feelings such that you cant allow yourself to love someone else so much that it hurts you…”Not from personal experience but from few situations here and there”…
have felt bad and been extremely hurt by it.
someone who has been an active participant in your life suddenly goes silent?
though there are different degrees of friendship, i know..
i don’t put my friend’s into catagories like, “real and online.”
a friend is just a friend to me.
Omgosh, yes. :’(
Yep, its happend, and it is soo true, On the internet, its easy for friends to come and go, just matters whos worth keeping even if you may never meet them in real life. I have a met I met in a Local chat on AOL. She lives about 10-15 miles from me… We have been talking for over 6 years and yet we never met lol. But She is an awesome person =p We talk on aim or the phone, which ever haha . but were both moms so were both busy lol.
@RulerofMasons - age doesn’t matter, i live in the northwest USA, and no one is too weird for me. i will read some of your posts and if you like, you can read some of mine. i think we are both honest people so what you read is who i am and what i read on your site is who i think YOU are.
Some times I think that my internet friendships are fake , and everyone is who they are on the internet because you don’t actually know anyone so you can be whoever you want, but honestly when I make friends with some one on the internet and form that connection i’m sad when I don’t check their blog or talk to them .
Several times. My sweetie calls me silly, because I love & respect online like I do in real life. So, when I call people my friends, that’s because in my books they really are. I’d do anything I can for anyone, just about, regardless to how far they may live from me. It breaks my heart to loose connection with people online even more so than people in real life, because if real life, we at least have mutual friends that I can ask about… You know? Find out how so-and-so is doing through someone whom knows us both. But online, it’s a bit more complicated. You’re only as known as you want to be, which makes keeping in touch a bit more difficult. You know? :/
@GoodGuyTheBoss - That is so sweet!