Tealeaf
Well-known member
Sometimes I poke around online niches for loners, people with anxiety, etc, where I think I could meet people for chat. In many of them (and I'm not talking about ALL) I feel like people have unrealistic expectations of others. That they'll find someone available all day to cheer them up, that the people they talk to will be lifelong friends, etc. It feels like people aren't looking for friendship but some kind of personal savior from their depression or their boredom, and it always seems to get taken incredibly personally if there's not much to talk about and conversation dies out.
I dislike rejection and failure as much as anyone, and some ways of rejecting someone are just rude, but something about what I see in these people makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I have to perform and feel things I couldn't possibly feel for a stranger in order to be "good enough", and in a place for people who already don't fit in and aren't good at performing at that. Like I have to provide some grand gesture of love and friendship to them that couldn't possibly be genuine, as we're strangers to each other. Or that it's not about me, it's about what I do for them.
So, I stopped talking to people there.
Conversely, I've had very good luck in MMOs, which aren't focused on finding friendship but have a social element. In three months I've made three new friends out of about a dozen people I'm around regularly, and they're all very laid-back about talking and getting to know each other. There's no real expectation beyond to be friendly, and if we don't see each other again after killing a dragon together it's not taken as a slight against them. I even wound up introducing people to each other, joining voice chat, and helping new players progress in the game because it was so friendly.
This is something I think is often discussed, though without a lot of detail, when it comes to making connections: being too needy and angsty vs letting people have some space. I suspect one of the people I talk to does have depression based off hints he's dropped, but I also don't feel like he's pushing responsibility for it on me. It's not like other people I talked to, who'd complain to me for hours every day if allowed but would never have time to help me or just talk as friends, which made me shy away from people who seemed to be looking for an outlet. I'm not expected to somehow make it all okay for him and work a miracle, even if I want to see him happier. If we see each other we have fun and talk a bit. If not, that's okay, too.
On the flip side, I found that focusing less on doing something about my own depression--getting more friends, getting a new job, falling in love--let me focus on who I was meeting for who they were. To focus on writing whether or not I wound up published, and even if I'm a nobody in real-life right now. That's something one of my online friends had told me, that looking too hard for something too special was preventing me from enjoying things for what they were. Example: A mutual friend who didn't talk much (still doesn't) and was very shy, but who was also trying very hard to make new friends. For them, trying at all was a big deal and it became easier to like them for that when I focused less on how we could get closer and just let things go at their own pace.
I hope I was never like those people to him or anyone else. If I was... that's something I'm glad is getting left behind.
I wonder, though, is this just the type of people forums for anxiety or making friends attract? People who are looking to skip past the work of a friendship like getting to know someone, figuring out who is and isn't compatible, etc, and skip straight to the rewards? Is there any way to mitigate it and help people find and make healthier connections? It just looks like wounded people using other wounded people to cover their own wounds (and possibly wounding each other further), and some scarred but mellow people taking what comes their way.
I dislike rejection and failure as much as anyone, and some ways of rejecting someone are just rude, but something about what I see in these people makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I have to perform and feel things I couldn't possibly feel for a stranger in order to be "good enough", and in a place for people who already don't fit in and aren't good at performing at that. Like I have to provide some grand gesture of love and friendship to them that couldn't possibly be genuine, as we're strangers to each other. Or that it's not about me, it's about what I do for them.
So, I stopped talking to people there.
Conversely, I've had very good luck in MMOs, which aren't focused on finding friendship but have a social element. In three months I've made three new friends out of about a dozen people I'm around regularly, and they're all very laid-back about talking and getting to know each other. There's no real expectation beyond to be friendly, and if we don't see each other again after killing a dragon together it's not taken as a slight against them. I even wound up introducing people to each other, joining voice chat, and helping new players progress in the game because it was so friendly.
This is something I think is often discussed, though without a lot of detail, when it comes to making connections: being too needy and angsty vs letting people have some space. I suspect one of the people I talk to does have depression based off hints he's dropped, but I also don't feel like he's pushing responsibility for it on me. It's not like other people I talked to, who'd complain to me for hours every day if allowed but would never have time to help me or just talk as friends, which made me shy away from people who seemed to be looking for an outlet. I'm not expected to somehow make it all okay for him and work a miracle, even if I want to see him happier. If we see each other we have fun and talk a bit. If not, that's okay, too.
On the flip side, I found that focusing less on doing something about my own depression--getting more friends, getting a new job, falling in love--let me focus on who I was meeting for who they were. To focus on writing whether or not I wound up published, and even if I'm a nobody in real-life right now. That's something one of my online friends had told me, that looking too hard for something too special was preventing me from enjoying things for what they were. Example: A mutual friend who didn't talk much (still doesn't) and was very shy, but who was also trying very hard to make new friends. For them, trying at all was a big deal and it became easier to like them for that when I focused less on how we could get closer and just let things go at their own pace.
I hope I was never like those people to him or anyone else. If I was... that's something I'm glad is getting left behind.
I wonder, though, is this just the type of people forums for anxiety or making friends attract? People who are looking to skip past the work of a friendship like getting to know someone, figuring out who is and isn't compatible, etc, and skip straight to the rewards? Is there any way to mitigate it and help people find and make healthier connections? It just looks like wounded people using other wounded people to cover their own wounds (and possibly wounding each other further), and some scarred but mellow people taking what comes their way.