"real" vs online friends
I was feeling fairly crappy today, so when I joined the IM party tonight I was feeling very shy and ended up just lurking and reading the conversation. There were a lot of people I didn't know and the conversation was moving very fast, so I had trouble keeping up (the shy IRCers I was used to chatting with don't talk so much :) ) and I didn't feel like I had anything to contribute. After most people went to bed, though, and there were only a small number of people left, most of whom I knew, I was a lot more comfortable joining in and now I feel a lot better in general.
I don't want anyone who was there earlier when I was being a wallflower to feel bad. It was totally my fault that I felt uncomfortable. I think there's an optimal number of people for me to be able to talk. Too few, and I feel the burden of keeping up too large a fraction of the conversation; too many, and I feel like other people would make far more interesting use of my share, so I just stay silent and listen. It works the same way in real life.
Anyway, chatting online made me feel much less lonely and more connected, which is nice, but also a little worrying, given my history with online groups. I've been avoiding people in real life far too much lately and it definitely makes it easier to hide in my room all day when I have all your blogs to read and comment on. If I'm getting that sense of community online, I'm not sure I'll have any incentive to do anything about developing real life friendships.
The thing is, there seems to be a far higher density of cool people online than in real life. There are a lot of people online with whom I have to restrain myself from acting like a complete fangirl and begging them to be my friend (perhaps not entirely successfully), but I very rarely meet such people in real life. Is this just because it's harder to identify them when you can't read an archive of their thoughts and feelings? Or are there fewer of them in any given geographical area? Maybe it's just that it's impossible for me to talk to the really cool people in real life, because I'm too intimidated.
How do you find cool people in real life to be friends with? And how do you make friends with them once you've identified them? Failing that, anyone want to be real life friends with me to save me having to start over?
posted by Lucy @ 1:28 AM
15
comments
15 Comments:
I enjoyed chatting with you--sorry I had to be so brief. Thanks for your nice welcome when I came on board.
You wrote: How do you find cool people in real life to be friends with?
I've moved to new parts of the US three times in the last decade. The things that I've found the most helpful have been to join a church choir (yes, really--some of the friendliest and kindest folks on earth!) and to volunteer with a non-profit organization. Whether it's an arts organization, Habitat for Humanity, or a school tutoring program, you tend to meet good-hearted people at volunteer events. If there's something you want to attend, but you're scared to go alone, you can e-mail someone in the organization and introduce yourself, say that you'd like to get involved but are shy, and is there a "behind the scenes" way you can help out? I get a lot of those e-mails in the organization I'm running right now. (And I loooooove those e-mails!) Don't take it personally if no one writes back--organizations run by volunteers don't always have their act together--just find another group, or try to contact someone else in the organization.
It takes time. One event is a start, but it will take a couple of times before people really warm up (because deep down a LOT of folks are shy and afraid of rejection, really). It's sort of an investment of yourself into a group. It eventually pays off.
I hope that helps. :)
I've hardly ever found people in real life that are as much fun as online people (or who I admire and respect as much as online people). And the ones who I have found I've been too shy to try and make friends with. There's no way I am cool enough for them.
But online (a) as you point out, geographical distribution isn't a problem and (b) I'm not so afraid to just break into the conversation (at a real party where I didn't know most people there is NO WAY I would have talked as much as I did today), because people can always ignore me if I'm too annoying (actually, I suppose they could in real life, too, but I think it's easier to exclude people online than it is in the real world, so people probably don't feel so bad doing it.)
Anyway, I want to be real life friends with you, but I'm not exactly one of the cool people. And not exactly in a geographical location that makes it possible, either.
But I'd love to meet up next time you come to Commonwealthland.
Hey Lucy
I totally want to be friends with you IRL! I said so on my blog not so long ago (when you helped me with my stoopid work problem, remember?). In my opinion, anyone who is nice enough to just randomly help someone they barely know is cool enough to be friends with me!
I wanted to say hi to you tonight, but I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable by singling you out. I felt like there was a lot going on too and so it's understandable not to have been totally joining in the conversation the whole time. I feel like I just said "ME ME ME ME" alot and let B* laugh over my comments being posted thrice instead of once. So I don't know that I fit in either really.
As far as meeting friends goes, I'd say I'm interested in people in general. So I just talk to people and ask them questions about what they do. The people I wind up being friends with return the favor - they're interested in me too. Then, I usually just invite them to something like a party or something I'm going to and I get the chance to talk to them for a little while, but without the pressure of having to entertain them the whole time. Of course, this only works when I'm going to parties.
I have a friend with social anxiety and she has made a lot of friends by joining book clubs and service organizations. Basically, by meeting like minded people.
I also want to say that I am mostly the same IRL as on my blog, but there are a few things (like the recent post about loneliness) that I probably wouldn't just share with any old person in my regular life. So, you might be right hat you get some special insight into people's personalities from reading their blogs, but I bet overall we are pretty much like we seem on our blogs.
Anyway, FWIW I'd be friends with you now and (if someone will freaking hire me) I might even be moving out there soon...
anyone want to be real life friends with me to save me having to start over?
yes.
I would totally like to be friends in real life, Lucy.
also, I felt somewhat similarly about the IM party -- it's weird, since at "real" parties if you think you're getting into an interesting conversation, you can move off to the side and talk in smaller groups, but that's more or less impossible on a message board. Unless you IM someone individually, but that seemed a little too personal. So you had to be willing to plunge into a colorful melee (and have something to say about jello, which I didn't really).
I'm real life, too. And I would have much rather spent my weekend chatting with you online or IRL. Maybe next weekend? Mr. Blue is dying for a trip into town to get some Famous Conductor's Ice Cream.
I'm sorry I couldn't make the IM party, though honestly I've no idea how you keep track of so many conversations simultaneously. The few times I've tried it, I just get confused.
I often find that people in real life are cooler than I thought they would be at first meeting. (Of course, some people turn out to be more irritating, too.) But online it's a lot easier to self-select for people who share my interests. I had a person over a few weeks ago who's made it clear that she would like to be a friend, but felt no shyness about looking around my house and saying, "Look at all those books. I could never have so many books. They look too *hard* for me."
Um, OK....
I've always had a much easier time making friends online than in real life. Easier to find a concentrated group with the same interests online.
I noticed you were lurking but I figured that's what you were most comfortable with. Things were really nuts there for a long time. I had a lot of fun though, and met some new people as well.
I'd be your friend too, if I thought we were at all close in location.
I want to be real life friends, and the only reason, I think, that we're not is that we're both too anxious to meet. Which is really unfortunate. Maybe we can work on that? Soon?
I've moved across the country (to places where I didn't know anyone) twice, and I always meet cool people--and then, through them, other cool people--in neighborhood bars. I realize that not everybody finds drinking quite the social activity I do, and I realize many people just don't drink. But local bars (the kind that have old-man regulars) always work for me.
yay! Thanks :) Now you just all need to move near me. (and I need to stop being so scared of meeting the cool people who are close enough to meet)
TD, thanks for your suggestions. I joined a community choir briefly this year, but I never talked to anybody. I was in one at home for 5 years too, and was even on the committee, but I still only had 2 actual friends there for one of those years. I think my problem has a lot to do with not knowing what to do once I meet cool people, too...
Styley, you are one of the cool people :) (As are all the rest of you here)
Betty, you have some good advice, too. It would be very cool if someone out here would hire you :) I think I need to work on being less obsessed with how I don't know what to say and everyone hates me, and more interested in other people...
Phantom, it's definitely true that people can turn out cooler than they seem on first meeting. I thought 3 of my favourite people were pretty irritating at first (2 of them, I can't even remember why).
Are there enough good things about this person to make up for not liking books? (is it possible to make up for not liking books?)
You know if I had my wish, you would never get rid of me, right? I would always be happy to chat/get ice cream with you and the fabulous Scribbler-Blues!
Wolfa, I'm not sure I'm good at making friends online either, it's only in comparison to real life that it seems that way. At least I can kind of talk to people online. Although, then I still think I'm being annoying etc.
I think, actually, I'm not even sure what defines being friends and what's appropriate friend behaviour, so I can never tell if I am friends with someone or not. I would like to be online friends (at least) with you, anyway.
Luckybuzz, I want to be real life friends too! Perhaps we should start the first step of our communal ice-cream-eating desensitisation plan?
Meeting cool people in bars sounds kind of scary to me, because drinking doesn't seem like enough of an activity to take the pressure off conversation for entertainment. Don't you have to actually, you know, talk to people? It doesn't help that I don't really like the taste of alcohol, it doesn't make me any less inhibited and I can never hear what anyone's saying over the music, anyway.
I think to some extent people on-line seem cooler because you get past the defenses more quickly - thus you get to see who they are more quickly. Plus, more introspective people are likely to be bloggers (particularly academic-type bloggers) - which often makes one cooler (in my eyes).
And, i wanted to say I'm sorry if our chat made you uncomfortable or anxious.
Shrinky, that's true, especially since I never get past anyone's defences (even my own) in person.
And no! no! no! Chatting with you did not make me anxious (except a little bit in the "I hope I'm not being boring/annoying/stupid so Shrinky won't want to chat with me again" sense); it was lots of fun. Please chat with me again!
I just want to clarify what I said - I'm only really anxious in the "too few people" cases in real life, or maybe if I don't know the people I'm talking with. I guess I'm still always anxious that whoever I'm talking with will think I'm an idiot, but I'd still like to talk to any of you, if you ever feel like IMing.
Yay! Lucy thinks I'm cool :)
Laughing at Phantom Scribbler's "friend". And no, I don't think it's possible to "make up for" that.
When I used to work nights at KFC to pay for undergrad, I used to take a book to read in the ten minute breaks we got every four hours. We only had a cupboard to take our break in, and it was open to the shop, so it was still loud and horrible even then. The only way to switch off even slightly was to read a a book.
One of the other girls who worked there walked past me one day when I was on a break and said, "How can you _read_ during a break? Don't you want to _relax_ and let your brain recover for a bit?"
Yeah. Cos reading's hard. And you need to let your brain recover from all that difficult burger making work.
This supports my theory that virtually everyone who blogs is lonely in some way and wanting more friends and interactions in their life. I don't except myself from that by any means, either. I think that makes it easier, because everyone is explicitly looking to make more connections online. Not the same in a departmental function, random library, coffee shop, etc.
"anyone want to be real life friends with me"
Yes!
Also, last time I checked, I was real...
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