Are internet friends more permanent than friends by proximity?

[Kawaii025]

In my opinion, the answer to this question would depend on the person and their situation.

I have people that I've met online and IRL that have drifted away because of life's circumstances. I also have one person I've met IRL and one person I met online that I consider my best friend and we still are to this day.

[MrGiggles]

i have almost certainly known people on this site longer than any friends in real life.

i wouldn't say that anyone here became a close friend, however. just super long term acquaintances, really.

I don't think I'm a typical case here, though. I have literally zero interest in maintaining relationships with people I don't see constantly, so all my high school friends exist only in my facebook feed at this point. My college friends might last longer, as we've set up a chatroom that we idle in constantly, but I think a few years will see me drifting away from that as well.

[Kraezymann]

I've never been one to try and make friends online because I've always felt I'd have to satisfy someone's funny bone or keep up with intelligent responses to maintain them or even make a friend. I want to make a good first impression but I'm always worried I'll fuck it up and they would decide I'm not worth talking too.

That being said, at what point does someone become a friend? What makes a friend in real life your friend, as compared to the Internet?

Also, good luck with the move. Hope it works out!

[choof]

I'm a meme and, as such, have no friends on the internet

[Nyokou]

I think it depends on the person. There are some old friends from IRL and the internet that I've tried reconnecting with but they've changed so much and their lives taken a different direction so it's weird to try and find common ground again. Then there are others from both IRL and the internet who are still the same, cool people you've always known (or hell, in some instances become even more awesome in some ways) that it's easy to reconnect with them.

[SC_coolguy44]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

I had some really close friends in college, but we rarely talk anymore because everyone split after college. I still talk to a few people I knew from college over facebook -- but there's only a handful of those. People from high school are long gone.

Yet, I still talk to some people from this forum on facebook and I have since I was 13, before facebook existed. I'd imagine that I'll continue to talk to those people indefinitely, since wherever I move in the world won't be a boundary.

I'm personally about to make a big move across the country. I don't know how long I'll be there. Five years? Maybe longer, depending?

And if I move, the friends I had there due to geographic proximity are gone too.

Now that I've had pretty much all my friends split from me (either by my own doing or by theirs) about 4-5 times in my life, I rarely feel that friendship is a permanent thing. In a weird way, the people I talk to from the internet are the few people who I can say I won't ever stop knowing.

Does anyone else feel this way? Or if you feel opposite, why?

I feel kind of like this where I only really contact some of my college and high school friends that I was really close to over facebook. I also have friends where we want to make plans with each other but the plans keep falling through. I also have friends who I am very close with that I hang out with every weekend and also see them on weekdays too. I am also pretty close with my online friends.

[gold stinger]

Yes, internet friends are more permanent than friends by proximity, but are never truly permanent. Friends based on proximity usually lasts shorter than proximity by internet because moving & finding a new place to live is a common thing in life. Friends based on internet depends on your proximity with internet. As we grow more and more connected to internet, the less we are connected by real life meetups.