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Hmm. Counterpoint. First, I don't doubt that making friends online is now much, much more common. But I'm surprised at the "weird and strange". I made some fri

by anyfoo 8y ago

Hmm. Counterpoint. First, I don't doubt that making friends online is now much, much more common. But I'm surprised at the "weird and strange". I made some friends online as early as the 90s, in IRC for example. Some of them are such good friends, we still talk to each other every day. But I personally never remember anyone, neither family nor any of the friends that I did not meet online, giving the impression that they find this "strange" or "weird". And the majority of my friends I did not meet online. Few of them are much into computers, or active online, so I don't think there's some kind of bias. Even when we directly talk about it, e.g. "How did you meet X?" - "Met him online", I don't recall any surprise or judgement. Come to think of it, it's not really very different from "met in a classic car club". Having met my fiancée online, for contrast, is a bit different. Probably because it does not leave much room for a meet-cute story, and is a rather intentional thing (two people seeking a relationship) instead of a beautiful coincidence. I don't think people care very much about the "origin story" for friends on the other hand, unless it stands out on its own. I grew up in Germany, if that matters for context.

theoh 8y ago
Friendships that start online and stay online (without ever involving meeting IRL) have been a minority interest. I can't say whether that's changed now. It used to imply a decision to spend time interacting through a screen (either in real-time or over email or usenet) rather than socializing in physical space. The people who made that decision, consciously or unconsciously, for whatever reasons, were a self-selected group, and a significant fraction of them would not have identified as mainstream or neurotypical. To judgemental people in the mainstream, that equals weird and strange.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  FWIW: I have had a lot of online friends. I do not think of myself as part of some self-selected group. I'm medically handicapped and I was a military wife. For those and other reasons, I happened to spend a lot of time online and it's become a habit. The internet has been very life enhancing for me. If I were hail and hardy and had not ended up socially isolated for various reasons, I doubt I would choose to spend so much time online. But I made the best of the hand dealt me and this is where I ended up. From some perspective, that's probably true of a lot of internet devotees. If you are, for example, not neurotypical, the internet may work better than face-to-face interactions. I also think it's not all that nice to tell a relative their interests are "weird." I kind of feel like someone who would do that probably would come up with excuses to be othering no matter the details of your life.
- anyfoo 8y ago
  Again, I just don’t have the impression that the origin story of a friend matters very much to anyone else than me and my friend. I have friends that I definitely would call “mainstream”, and some of them you might call judgmental. However, their perception would rather apply to the person, how they present themselves and behave, rather than to how I originally met that person. That factor is bound to be just a passing interest (“How’d you met by the way? Ah.”). If at all, because come to think of it, you already have to have formed some opinion, or somewhat care, about said friend to go as far as asking such a question. Ask yourself whether you’ve ever wondered with more than just fleeting, and therefore inconsequential, interest about how your friends have met their friends, the ones that you don’t have any strong feelings about yourself. Which, again, also seems to be a bit of a different story with the people you’re dating.
  - theoh 8y ago
    I think when Klathmon said "online friends", they meant friends who only communicate online. That's the scenario my reply addressed. You haven't exactly made it clear what kind of relationships you are talking about, but it sounds like you might be thinking of predominantly IRL relationships that just happen to have started online. That is a totally different ballgame.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - anyfoo 8y ago
      Not sure. I don’t know! There’s one person that I have never physically met, but talked with almost every day for decades now. He’s however in the same (very small) group as other people I also talk with every day, but have seen a handful of times. They will definitely be invited to my wedding, but given how he happens to have met the others a handful of times, just not me (by sheer coincidence), that maybe lessens it.
usrusr 8y ago
Slight tangent: if Fortnite has really become as mainstream as the term suggests, I'd expect that the "met online" kind of relationship would be mostly a thing of the past: if almost everybody is playing, playing with people from your physical sphere becomes a possibility and once that becomes the normal thing to do, hooking up with strangers on the internet might become quite exotic again.

by anyfoo 8y ago

theoh 8y ago

Friendships that start online and stay online (without ever involving meeting IRL) have been a minority interest. I can't say whether that's changed now. It used to imply a decision to spend time interacting through a screen (either in real-time or over email or usenet) rather than socializing in physical space. The people who made that decision, consciously or unconsciously, for whatever reasons, were a self-selected group, and a significant fraction of them would not have identified as mainstream or neurotypical. To judgemental people in the mainstream, that equals weird and strange.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
FWIW: I have had a lot of online friends. I do not think of myself as part of some self-selected group. I'm medically handicapped and I was a military wife. For those and other reasons, I happened to spend a lot of time online and it's become a habit. The internet has been very life enhancing for me. If I were hail and hardy and had not ended up socially isolated for various reasons, I doubt I would choose to spend so much time online. But I made the best of the hand dealt me and this is where I ended up. From some perspective, that's probably true of a lot of internet devotees. If you are, for example, not neurotypical, the internet may work better than face-to-face interactions. I also think it's not all that nice to tell a relative their interests are "weird." I kind of feel like someone who would do that probably would come up with excuses to be othering no matter the details of your life.
anyfoo 8y ago
Again, I just don’t have the impression that the origin story of a friend matters very much to anyone else than me and my friend. I have friends that I definitely would call “mainstream”, and some of them you might call judgmental. However, their perception would rather apply to the person, how they present themselves and behave, rather than to how I originally met that person. That factor is bound to be just a passing interest (“How’d you met by the way? Ah.”). If at all, because come to think of it, you already have to have formed some opinion, or somewhat care, about said friend to go as far as asking such a question. Ask yourself whether you’ve ever wondered with more than just fleeting, and therefore inconsequential, interest about how your friends have met their friends, the ones that you don’t have any strong feelings about yourself. Which, again, also seems to be a bit of a different story with the people you’re dating.
- theoh 8y ago
  I think when Klathmon said "online friends", they meant friends who only communicate online. That's the scenario my reply addressed. You haven't exactly made it clear what kind of relationships you are talking about, but it sounds like you might be thinking of predominantly IRL relationships that just happen to have started online. That is a totally different ballgame.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - anyfoo 8y ago
    Not sure. I don’t know! There’s one person that I have never physically met, but talked with almost every day for decades now. He’s however in the same (very small) group as other people I also talk with every day, but have seen a handful of times. They will definitely be invited to my wedding, but given how he happens to have met the others a handful of times, just not me (by sheer coincidence), that maybe lessens it.

usrusr 8y ago

Slight tangent: if Fortnite has really become as mainstream as the term suggests, I'd expect that the "met online" kind of relationship would be mostly a thing of the past: if almost everybody is playing, playing with people from your physical sphere becomes a possibility and once that becomes the normal thing to do, hooking up with strangers on the internet might become quite exotic again.