Quote:
For one, friends in reality... you know who they are, what they look like, where they live, their phone numbers, their family, their pets, their habits, everything. You visit their houses, they visit yours, etc.
I can honestly say I do not have this kind of relationship with anyone on FFR. There's only one person within an acceptable driving distance to me who I'd ever want to meet, and I've already seen him in-person, so I wouldn't have a problem with it.
There's no way that you can achieve reaistic friendship with text being transmitted across a server between other people without meeting in reality. If you think there's a way, prove me wrong.
|
You know this is not the kind of thing that can be proven, Squeek. I don't see why you bother saying something like that. I swear, you're so hardheaded sometimes. And as for the things you said, I don't know the family/phone numbers/addresses/pets of some IRL friends, but I do know these things about some internet buddies. I also don't visit friends' houses and they don't visit mine very much. To be honest, most of my real life friends I talk to online more than I do over the phone (I hate phones XD) or anything. Only time I ever hang out in person much is when I'm on campus at school.
But I suppose that's just how I am. I don't have to see somebody to get the value of friendship. Sure, there are things that can't be done with internet friends, but mostly these are things I wouldn't really crave doing with RL friends anyway, so I'm just fine with internet buddies.
Also, you guys keep talking about how people are different. But think about this: many people change depending on location. Whether this means they're different at home vs at school or different online vs in-person, most people can't help but change how they act depending on the crowd. There are perfectly logical reasons for this, most of it being that people want to be accepted. For me, there are basically two Noahs. There is the shy Noah that doesn't talk much because he doesn't know you and feels uncomfortable, and there's the loud talkative Noah that you get online/when you really know me. Really, internet friends have the advantage cuz they see my real side right away, so when they meet me in person I wouldn't feel like I have to hold back to not scare them away or something. If I wasn't shy, I'd be the same all the time, and I'd be like I am online.
Oh, and like that one kid said, age doesn't matter online. I love that. Jake is really cool, but he's younger than my lil sister, and she's....not so cool. I never would have guessed his age just by knowing him online, and that's awesome. Really, I'm older than most of you, and if we all lived in the same town I doubt any of us would ever have talked (except maybe Afro, he's only a year off and we might have met at school if we had gone to the same place). I think it's cool that the internet knocked down the age barrier so we can all be friends. =)
Quote:
|
I like to complain about my problems to buttfly a lot. He usually tries to help.
|
I like to help. Actually, the funny thing is that some people I knew just barely at school would get ahold of my screenname and vent their frustrations to me. We wouldn't talk except when they had some sort of a problem, and when people do this to me solely over the internet I think it's funny because IRL people do it too. XD
Also, about the whole "they might be lying and be somebody else" thing. There was a time or two, while talking to mom about something one of you said (yes, I talk to mom about what people on FFR say. All my friends IRL know I have internet buddies. Jurs has even called my dorm and gotten buddy buddy with my roommate. I don't think he was too bothered by it. If a person I know in person would think badly of me just because I have internet buddies, I don't want to be friends with them. XD) that mom asked "well how do you know these people are really who they say they are?" I explained to her that I've seen most of the regulars in photos (and enough that they couldn't just be pulling from Google or something) and several of them on live-camera, I've talked to several of you on the phone (or Skype), and the things you guys say just add up and I know you're not lying. I told her about the EoD thing and how we all knew she was lying and that it was really easy to see, and once I started paying attention for things I found real evidence of lying.
Honestly, though, I'm surprised by how many of you nerdy so-and-sos say that internet friends are pointless or infinitely worse than RL friends. I figured I'd get more of a bias for internet friends here. XD