Online friendships: Less Lonely or More?

[user 9172]

I'm sure a lot of people here have online friends, or have done in the past. But my question is, for those of us who are lonely and friendless in real life, do online friendships actually make you feel less lonely on balance?

I have a few wonderful online friends. However, sometimes I feel that having online friends and no real life friends extenuates the feeling of loneliness. Almost like it's half way there but not quite, and it makes you realise all the more what you're missing out on? Does that make sense to anyone else?

What are your views? I am curious to know how other people really feel about this topic.

 

[Callie]

I honestly don't know what I would have done if I didn't have my online friends. Hell, I've never even met my best friend irl before, but she's a sister to me now. She's family and we have each other's back for whatever reason. I also have a few other very close online friends. Seriously, I'd be lost without them.

But just the fact that I know they are there for me WHENEVER I need for WHATEVER reason... yeah, I feel less alone for that.

 

[Luna]

There was a time where I had a ton of online friends - all from here.
I felt good.
It was like...I was on a high.
For the first time in my life - I didn't feel alone.

Fast-forward to over a year, and I have learnt that for the most part, online friendships are superficial and bullshit.
I emotionally invested myself too much and have now realized that no one really gives a fresia.
I'm disappointed in myself that I spent so much time worrying, caring, and crying over people who I haven't even met and couldn't care less about me.
I only have myself to blame.

I suppose I was extremely vulnerable and lonely but I have now learnt for the better.
When I started to be proactive in my real-life by meeting new people, volunteering, being more positive etc; some of my online friends were furious with me. The sad part I realize now was that the main thing we had in common was our misery. Now that I wasn't so miserable because I was having inklings of success for the first time - they cut contact and I believe it is for the best.
As the old saying goes: Misery loves company.

I'm not "popular" or overly well-liked in real life or online...but I'm too tired to even try.
I'm not one of those people that others feel connected to and want to care for.

It's not all bad though!
Despite my experiences, I love this forum and I'm grateful to all the good and bad that's happened - especially the bad since it's helped me to not give much of a fresia for people anymore and harden me.

There are 3 people that I can consider to be actual friends and I would meet in real life. In a way, because of them, I feel...slightly less lonely.

However, there's a part of me that believes I can't fully confirm the friendship unless I were to meet them and see if it were to work in real life.

I say that because:
Everyday, everywhere...there are so many people that we pass by that are lonely. I'll use myself as an example: I take care of myself and have gone to classes, hobby groups, church groups, volunteered, helped strangers, gone out of my way to approach people and still - no one gives a fresia about me.

If by some freakish magic, I were to end up in a bar with the people from here, online sites etc; I still feel the result would be the same.

For that I still feel alone.
But you know, it's not that bad.
You either let it crush you or just suck it up.
I just keep on chugging along...loneliness hasn't killed me yet.

 

[VanillaCreme]

To me, a friendship is a friendship, whether I'm typing to you or talking to you face-to-face. And if an internet friendship is fake, then it would be just the same in person. Being behind a screen and keyboard shouldn't change a person.

 

[Randywaldo]

I have real friends but i like to have online friends for when i am home and no one is around. i feel this helps me to cope with being alone so often. i can see where it does leave you open to get hurt but that is the risk we all have to take. believe it or not some people do still care and want to have friends in the real world and online.

 

[annexe]

This is a really interesting thread.
I feel it's much easier to make friends online due to its countless communities and niches that are more difficult to stumble upon IRL. Online, everyone is anonymous by default; it's much easier to be upfront about your interests when nobody knows who you are. This isn't so much the case in person, where most people feel like they have a reputation to defend and appearances to maintain. The online world is so fast-paced with so many participants that people can afford to be choosy with who they befriend.

This can always go the other way, of course; dropping friends on the internet is just as easy as making them. There are seemingly no ramifications to blocking someone you've never met before, considering you won't have to deal with any awkwardness that would otherwise have ensued had you known them in person. Too, it's so much easier to let yourself drift away from them. Forget to sign in for a couple of days and you'll already be moving on to other people or tending to IRL. It's easy to convince yourself that these people you meet online aren't really affected by your interactions, simply because you don't communicate with them face-to-face, but this isn't always true at all.

 

[Sci-Fi]

I feel less lonely, not because of chatting with new people from around the world but because there are so many people out there who feel the same way. We all know that there are people out there, but coming onto a site like this and reading about them lets you into their lives. Lets you connect with those people.

 

[Rosalyn]

Wow, Luna....I'm glad you wrote that. I thought maybe I was being crazy, but now I started to feel stronger and better about myself, almost all my online friends seemed to drop away from me. I still love them. It still hurts. But I can't stay a complete kitten just for them.

My online friends are just as important as offline to me, so normally they would make me feel less lonely. Just becuase you can't touch, smell and see them, doesn't make them any less real. In the case of the internet, anyway.

 

[yesm]

Better online friendships than none at all i guess. I'd have a conversation maybe once a month if i was lucky without the internet.

 

[cumulus.james]

There seems to be some barrier stopping people who talk online from actually meeting up and hanging out in the real world. I thought this was just me, that i get on peoples nerves so they don’t want to meet. But I am kinda glad it is not JUST me.

Years ago it seemed really easy to met people from the web in real life. But then it was more profile sites and chat rooms, less closed, less paranoid than the modern social networks.

When your young you meet most your friends through schools and collages and university’s. But after that I heard someone else on here say that you meet most your friends though work.

That’s me buggerd then! I work for myself and on my own...

I’ve been on this forum a while I guess like a lot of you looking for answers "how do you get those great friends? How do you get the Girl/Guy to love?. There does not seem an answer for many if you cant find people online. You cant exactly go stand in a bar on your won and hope someone talks to you (I know, I’ve done it, But only cos it was next to the bus station). People just think your a loser and or weirdo. Perhaps that translates to the web? Perhaps more so to this forum. Perhaps we are just "standing in a bar on our own" to other people on here.

I'm too old for this honeysuckle. I'm going to lie down.

 

[floffyschneeman]

I don't mind online friendship. It is somewhat essential for my own sanity's sake. I can tell online friends stuff that I could never say to my real life friends. But there has to be a balance between real life and online friends. And if you don't have real life friends then better start working on that. Sometimes we just need a breath of fresh air, a change of environment, to be out, be a bit social with a few good companies and I thank my real life friends for that. As for online friends, I consider them as real life friends just on different setting. I would love to meet them, but being so far from most, I accepted that fact that I may never meet them, regardless, that doesn't lessen the care I have for them and the care they have for me. But there are online friends that I just have to meet, and by that I mean HAVE TO! lol

 

[Bread]

I honestly feel a lot less lonely with the folks I talk to online. I'd hate to think of the SAN loss induced by not having these people around. True that a whole lot of folks out there are detached and can go off without a word (happens all too often, m'afraid), but there's a select few who stick around, and I appreciate them for being there.

 

[lonelyfairy]

I answered ''I feel more lonely.'' Because I release how lonely I really am. :/

 

[athwart]

I have been online since 1988. Early on, I found that online friends made me feel more lonely, since they lived very far away; I would never be able to see them in real life. By the time 1996 rolled around, I stopped making friends online. I have made RL friends, however, through online tools, such as MeetUp, so I am not opposed to meeting people online.

 

[nerdygirl]

You'll always meet people who think online friendships are "disposable". It is not the relationship that is superficial, but the person. That person is looking for a quick fix, not a serious investment of emotion and time.

When people think a relationship conducted via internet means less, I can only assume they've never had to move. I met my best friend in second grade. We've each moved a few times, and few of those times have brought us to the same area. We haven't even lived in the same state for about five years. The fact that we don't see each other in person doesn't invalidate our friendship.

 

[Asterli]

I voted but I have to say that it doesn't matter if you feel lonely or less lonely

 

[lonelyfairy]

Early on, I found that online friends made me feel more lonely, since they lived very far away; I would never be able to see them in real life.

I feel this way too!

 

[Rolo]

I voted for less lonely- I really enjoy talking to the people that I meet online and would never dismiss them as being less important than a in person friend. However, when the people are not online or they have stopped replying i just feel as lonley as ever because i again have nobody to speak to

Its also depressing when ive got to know someone and think we are getting on really well and then they go silent because then i think i have done something wrong or whatever-it just reminds me of what happens in person. I now feel im just as bad at starting a convo online as i am in person, same applies to keeping them!

 

[Silvernight]

I don't usually maintain online friendships. There is only one exception to that, I've got a guy friend whom I only met in real life once (we don't live in the same city). We talk on skype from time to time and yes, I consider him a friend, and would even help him financially if he needed it. But as they say, an exception confirms the rule. Meeting my friends in real life, actually being in close proximity to them, doing stuff together, even our common memories is absolutely essential for me to think of them as friends. If that component is missing, then I just don't see it the same way. I'm not really a fan of copious online communication and can't even muster the enthusiasm to use social networks, though I do have accounts in a couple of them. Well, that's just me, clearly there are many people who feel otherwise.

 

[aspeckofdust]

That's a complicated answer for me. When I find a good friend online, that I talk to frequently, it does make me feel less lonely, at least usually. Nothing lasts forever though and lately, I seem to be losing friends and that doesn't help at all with my loneliness. It's like everyone is moving on, except me, and I don't know how to move on, because if I'm not online, what else am I going to do? I have a job, but that doesn't take up all of my time. And I've pretty much given up on being very social in real life, because it never gets me anywhere.

I still try to make friends online and I really hope I can find someone that can be more than a friend to me online too, because I feel like, as of now, it's pretty much my only chance. So basically, having friends online does make me feel less lonely, but actually finding friends, good ones, is the problem.