Seeing it coming... I think I'm just gonna take that step myself

[MentatsGhoul]

First off, sorry I've been making way too many threads lately. Anyway, on to it.

Something I've experienced a lot over the past few years, especially since I started making friends online, is slowly losing them. And, with these past few, I've started to recognise when it's about to happen. It's so step by step and systematic it's unreal. Talking for hours turns into a few messages a day, then they start skipping days, then you talk a few times a week or less until one day they just drop out for good, stop messaging you.

It's happening now with someone I really care about. The last "friend" I have. I saved her life, or at least, potentially did, by talking her out of suicide when she was having a major breakdown on a different forum back in August, and it feels like we've been inseparable since. She's the only person who gave a honeysuckle during these difficult times for me. Everyone else, my ex, my other friends, they all left me, but she stayed, and honestly, I don't remember ever being that close with anyone, though, I'd never really have the courage to tell her that. Even my ex was distant and didn't understand half the time, but it's like this friend always got me and we always had each other's backs.

But, I'm seeing all those signs with her. We talked every day, had endless inside jokes. Then, she got busy, really busy with stuff. I missed her, but of course, that's always gonna happen with people in life, so I assumed that was it. But, she got "busy" more and more often, and with no real explanation or warning. Her messages are hours apart, if she messages me at all. I have to initiate every conversation. I tried not messaging her a few times, and sure enough, nothing. She doesn't even say goodnight anymore, she just leaves me hanging when she leaves. She's gonna abandon me, just like everyone else does. I tried talking to her, asking if everything was okay and why she was distant, but she just denied it.

And you know what... fine. I don't want to burden her. I know she's slowly making progress with her life and her offline friends. But, I just wish she'd stop talking to me at once, just leave me. Maybe leave a quick message explaining why if she's brave enough, but I don't expect much. I'm just so tired of sitting by helplessly watching it happen, just like it happens with everyone else. Why can't it just be quick and relatively painless? I hate this "letting down gently" bullshit, I'm so tired of it. I'd rather not have a fake friendship with someone I know I'm annoying or being a burden to as a cheap substitute. At least let me have my pride.

I think I'm gonna remove her from my skype...

 

[Paraiyar]

I've come to the conclusion that it isn't worth it to invest too heavily in online friendships. If you invest too much in most of them then eventually you'll feel that the time you put in was wasted. I like to have some online friends that I keep at a good distance and maybe see them someday when I travel. I find this approach causes less pain. Just my outlook on it.

 

[user 115627]

I've always been very pro-active when it comes down to ending things that I deemed finished (sometimes too much). But as with real life friendships, it's important to step back and take a long hard look at how much they still mean to both parties involved. It's just that online friendships seem to have a habit of progressing and regressing at a much higher pace. Occassional casual chatting can easily turn into daily personal talk and vice versa. It can give you the illusion that you have a real connection going on, but one day the well just runs dry. For myself that often went hand in hand with losing my purpose.

I dunno anymore. A while ago I decided to not invest into developing or maintaining friendships at all - save for one exception that has proven to be absolutely consistent. On the internet people seem even more inclined to tell you how much you mean to them and then it goes all flaky anyway. I've always been a skeptic. Sometimes life just has its way with people. It's up to us to accept the given terms or not.

 

[ardour]

Sorry if this is a blunt assessment.

You say she doesn't initiate any more. There's no need to watch it gradually die then. By turning off the life support and not initiating either.

It sounds like you can't accept the situation, would rather her be rude so you can assign blame, protect your pride, leaving you feeling vindicated (but also bitter). Is that.. it?

Better to try and move on and forget.

 

[MentatsGhoul]

I've come to the conclusion that it isn't worth it to invest too heavily in online friendships. If you invest too much in most of them then eventually you'll feel that the time you put in was wasted. I like to have some online friends that I keep at a good distance and maybe see them someday when I travel. I find this approach causes less pain. Just my outlook on it.

I've always been very pro-active when it comes down to ending things that I deemed finished (sometimes too much). But as with real life friendships, it's important to step back and take a long hard look at how much they still mean to both parties involved. It's just that online friendships seem to have a habit of progressing and regressing at a much higher pace. Occassional casual chatting can easily turn into daily personal talk and vice versa. It can give you the illusion that you have a real connection going on, but one day the well just runs dry. For myself that often went hand in hand with losing my purpose.

I dunno anymore. A while ago I decided to not invest into developing or maintaining friendships at all - save for one exception that has proven to be absolutely consistent. On the internet people seem even more inclined to tell you how much you mean to them and then it goes all flaky anyway. I've always been a skeptic. Sometimes life just has its way with people. It's up to us to accept the given terms or not.

This is good advice, but keep in mind my situation. I have NO "real life" friends, and it's not from lack of trying either, so please don't just say "focus on people in your area", the cold hard truth is, I'm unlikely to make any friends in person any time soon. And I have a few other online friends I can talk to on and off once every few weeks or months, but none I'm very close to, sometimes, talking to some of them does more harm than good for various reasons. So, she's very important to me. Even if I wasn't that "invested" emotionally, she would have still been the only person I could talk to with any stability, so for purely practical social reasons losing her would have been a blow.

Sorry if this is a blunt assessment.

You say she doesn't initiate any more. There's no need to watch it gradually die then. By turning off the life support and not initiating either.

It sounds like you can't accept the situation, would rather her be rude so you can assign blame, protect your pride, leaving you feeling vindicated (but also bitter). Is that.. it?

Better to try and move on and forget.

I've stopped initiating these past few days. But, honestly, just seeing her on my contact list kinda creates the false hope that she will talk to me. The main reason I haven't deleted her already (aside from still caring about her and wanting to talk to her) is because well, she takes abandonment very badly, worse than I do. Not long after we started talking, a different online friend she was very close to stopped talking to her, and she's still occasionally torn up about it. I KNOW I at least WAS extremely important to her for a long time. If there's any chance I still am, I don't know how much I might hurt her if I'm just overreacting here.

As for your explanation.... perhaps that's part of it, but I don't really think so (not to just roll off the blame from me). I'm honestly... I guess you could say used to rejection. I don't think anyone, not even people I've been close to for a while, owe me their attention, and as I've said, the past few friendships I've had have all ended in a similar way. I'm just sick of people feeding me white lies. My family does that to each other until the tensions build up and it ends in a crisis, my ex kept something that was a major issue from me most of our relationship... I'm just sick of it. The one thing I expect from my friends, loved ones, pretty much anyone I'm close to, is that they have the respect to be honest about any issues in the relationship and approach them with maturity, not treat me like a child who can't take any criticism.
So basically, if she just up and left or said that something was wrong or that she wasn't feeling close to me anymore, sure, I'd be hurt, but no hard feelings, I'd move on. But this situation is really screwing with my head.

 

[user 115627]

This is good advice, but keep in mind my situation. I have NO "real life" friends, and it's not from lack of trying either, so please don't just say "focus on people in your area", the cold hard truth is, I'm unlikely to make any friends in person any time soon. And I have a few other online friends I can talk to on and off once every few weeks or months, but none I'm very close to, sometimes, talking to some of them does more harm than good for various reasons. So, she's very important to me. Even if I wasn't that "invested" emotionally, she would have still been the only person I could talk to with any stability, so for purely practical social reasons losing her would have been a blow.

Trust me, that would be last advice I'd give anybody since I don't venture out much, or at all. But I am a lone wolf. I have no real life friends either except for one I see every couple of months at best for a casual gaming session. We live 2-3 hours apart now that I had to move again for my new job. We aren't that close anyway, but we are consistent. The others have already withered away after I got out of school. Therefore I rely exclusively on online interaction for what little interaction I want or need. I am what I'd call "emotionally self-sufficient" for the most part and I prefer to solve everything on my own...

Why does talking to those few online friends do more harm than good though? Are they the very casual kind you can't confront with personal troubles or who only belittle things or put you down? Otherwise I would've asked if you could form a stronger bond to one of them, but I reckon that's out of question. There's still the option of trying to meet someone completely new "somewhere on the internet", but I know these things take time. Maybe too much time you don't really want to invest anyway because it's just as much of a gamble.

Well...with all that information in mind, cutting her off completely would be nothing but detrimental without a new plan. But if she doesn't see eye to eye with you on how distant you two have become, there's little you can do but to confront her, say you're not content with how things are developing and hope she doesn't beat around the bush. I mean, you already said you don't like the status quo. But then the choice seems to be either this or putting things to an end and face loneliness (which is at least somewhat consistent).

 

[VanillaCreme]

And you know what... fine. I don't want to burden her. I know she's slowly making progress with her life and her offline friends. But, I just wish she'd stop talking to me at once, just leave me. Maybe leave a quick message explaining why if she's brave enough, but I don't expect much. I'm just so tired of sitting by helplessly watching it happen, just like it happens with everyone else. Why can't it just be quick and relatively painless? I hate this "letting down gently" bullshit, I'm so tired of it. I'd rather not have a fake friendship with someone I know I'm annoying or being a burden to as a cheap substitute. At least let me have my pride.

If you say that, then why not do it yourself anyway? Why would it be up to her... She doesn't need to explain anything really. People can stop talking to whoever, for whatever reason, whenever. It's just nice when they aren't like that. You wish she'd stop talking to you at all, but why wait for that if it bothers you so. Cut it off yourself if you see it's not the best thing for you.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I feel like you're only getting a negative perspective here. I mean, I really only see a few of my offline friends lately, and haven't talked to the rest of them in months. But when we do everything is fine.

I notice that I don't have much to talk about even with close friends, because when I get in these ruts of feeling low, I don't really do much. I just spend all day online, read a bunch of stuff and forget it all to distract myself from how I'm feeling.

Maybe go away for a while, just do some things you want to do, and re-start a chat with her later? Or just leave her a message asking if she wants to chat sometime. Have some new stories for her when you get back. Shake things up a little. Take an indefinite hiatus and come back when you feel like it. It might work, you never know.

 

[MentatsGhoul]

Trust me, that would be last advice I'd give anybody since I don't venture out much, or at all. But I am a lone wolf. I have no real life friends either except for one I see every couple of months at best for a casual gaming session. We live 2-3 hours apart now that I had to move again for my new job. We aren't that close anyway, but we are consistent. The others have already withered away after I got out of school. Therefore I rely exclusively on online interaction for what little interaction I want or need. I am what I'd call "emotionally self-sufficient" for the most part and I prefer to solve everything on my own...

Why does talking to those few online friends do more harm than good though? Are they the very casual kind you can't confront with personal troubles or who only belittle things or put you down? Otherwise I would've asked if you could form a stronger bond to one of them, but I reckon that's out of question. There's still the option of trying to meet someone completely new "somewhere on the internet", but I know these things take time. Maybe too much time you don't really want to invest anyway because it's just as much of a gamble.

Well...with all that information in mind, cutting her off completely would be nothing but detrimental without a new plan. But if she doesn't see eye to eye with you on how distant you two have become, there's little you can do but to confront her, say you're not content with how things are developing and hope she doesn't beat around the bush. I mean, you already said you don't like the status quo. But then the choice seems to be either this or putting things to an end and face loneliness (which is at least somewhat consistent).

There's a number of reasons why talking to my other online friends can do more harm than good. Without going into too much detail for fear of offending anyone, a lot have more... obvious mental and social issues than I do. And, there's virtually no joking or positive interaction, and when we talk about deeper stuff, our problems, it's 99% about them, if I try to talk about myself they'll redirect the conversation back onto them. Which I'm perfectly fine with in small doses, I'm not that vain, but developing further, the friendship would just be very one sided.

I don't know, I tried talking to her. I guess I'll try and get her to go more in depth if I can talk to her again, and if I can hold her attention.

If you say that, then why not do it yourself anyway? Why would it be up to her... She doesn't need to explain anything really. People can stop talking to whoever, for whatever reason, whenever. It's just nice when they aren't like that. You wish she'd stop talking to you at all, but why wait for that if it bothers you so. Cut it off yourself if you see it's not the best thing for you.

See my reply to ardour.

I feel like you're only getting a negative perspective here. I mean, I really only see a few of my offline friends lately, and haven't talked to the rest of them in months. But when we do everything is fine.

I notice that I don't have much to talk about even with close friends, because when I get in these ruts of feeling low, I don't really do much. I just spend all day online, read a bunch of stuff and forget it all to distract myself from how I'm feeling.

Maybe go away for a while, just do some things you want to do, and re-start a chat with her later? Or just leave her a message asking if she wants to chat sometime. Have some new stories for her when you get back. Shake things up a little. Take an indefinite hiatus and come back when you feel like it. It might work, you never know.

Well, that's how most friendships work, it's rare to talk to very often. That's not really what I'm talking about though. I'm just seeing the friendship I have with this specific person slip away bit by bit, like I have with every other close friend I've ever had. Maybe I could reconnect in a few months, but what would be the point? We'd just talk once or twice and off she'd be again.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Well, that's how most friendships work, it's rare to talk to very often. That's not really what I'm talking about though. I'm just seeing the friendship I have with this specific person slip away bit by bit, like I have with every other close friend I've ever had. Maybe I could reconnect in a few months, but what would be the point? We'd just talk once or twice and off she'd be again.

But you don't know that she would just slip away again. I'm just saying, if you don't want life to just kick you randomly to whatever, then try something, anything to change that.

Maybe she thinks she knows all there is to know about you, but you could prove her wrong. She might see that there is something she misses about you. Maybe you will have to build up again, slowly, over time. I feel like if it means this much to you, then anything is worth a shot.

 

[VanillaCreme]

If you say that, then why not do it yourself anyway? Why would it be up to her... She doesn't need to explain anything really. People can stop talking to whoever, for whatever reason, whenever. It's just nice when they aren't like that. You wish she'd stop talking to you at all, but why wait for that if it bothers you so. Cut it off yourself if you see it's not the best thing for you.

See my reply to ardour.

I wasn't necessarily expecting a response. I was just putting my thought out there. I'm just saying if you don't want to see someone there, remove them. If you think you'd hurt her feelings, then leave it be.

 

[user 115627]

There's a number of reasons why talking to my other online friends can do more harm than good. Without going into too much detail for fear of offending anyone, a lot have more... obvious mental and social issues than I do. And, there's virtually no joking or positive interaction, and when we talk about deeper stuff, our problems, it's 99% about them, if I try to talk about myself they'll redirect the conversation back onto them. Which I'm perfectly fine with in small doses, I'm not that vain, but developing further, the friendship would just be very one sided.

I don't know, I tried talking to her. I guess I'll try and get her to go more in depth if I can talk to her again, and if I can hold her attention.

I see what you mean. The "easiest" solution here would be to find somebody who is a bit more on your level and has the time and strength to listen to your issues as well...and some humor wouldn't hurt either. It has nothing to do with being vain if you ask me. When you are already struggling with yourself, it only gets harder to have an ear for your friends' personal problems and nothing but these problems. At least if there is not some sort of counterweight in action, some lighter interactions to balance things out. I'm not sure if one could call these people friends otherwise.

Anyways...until you have a more heart to heart talk with that friend of yours, that's all I can say on that matter.

 

[MentatsGhoul]

Update:
Okay, gave one last shot at messaging her, asking if we could talk. No response this time. Guess she really is letting me go. Not even replying if I message her first any more. Eh. If she hasn't responded by morning... gonna remove her. Enough of this. I think I at least deserved a goodbye or an explanation after all we went through together, but guess not, whatever. It's over.

 

[handheart]

Online relationshp they are not so good it sbeter to meet people in real life because they will know you better you will know them also but in online iits a totaly other situation its like talking to a computer and waiting to atach on you ,

 

[sentiententity]

Update:
Okay, gave one last shot at messaging her, asking if we could talk. No response this time. Guess she really is letting me go. Not even replying if I message her first any more. Eh. If she hasn't responded by morning... gonna remove her. Enough of this. I think I at least deserved a goodbye or an explanation after all we went through together, but guess not, whatever. It's over.

That sucks. That's rather rude of her. Oh well.  I've been in your same situation many times.