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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

June Discussion - Online/Offline


Davrick

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Jcon - For me it would be seeing faces behind the names. The few times I have met someone who I initially met online I've always been spun out by it. So surreal when those little letters actually turn into a proper human...

 

I've made some very, very close friends indeed online, and we discuss and talk about and share some very real things. I'm probably more guarded online than I used to be, and probably more open in 'real' life, which is quite a reverse. I've met people and dated people I've met from Facebook, as scary as that sounds. And the first social scene I really hung with I met and pretty much formed online, and this was before FB and all that. A few of these people I still call a friend to this day.

 

So can it be real? Absolutely. Absolutely it can.

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For me it is both real and unreal.

 

It is real in the way that it engages your emotions and intellect. Emotion is the most authentic experience a person have. So in that way it is real.

 

When I first joined this forum I was excited by the experience. I felt sad,delighted, irritated, amused and sometimes furious. These are authentic emotions therefore it is real. I also felt nervous just as I would in rl when meeting a new group of people. It was quite deflating when I went on to tell friends about it in rl and their response was it's not real. It is real because I know that these are real people I'm talking to with real emotions and can be just as hurt by thoughtless comments as they would in life.

 

It is not real in that all the people I met here are the representation of their real self. That what they are only exist in my imagination. They could be totally different in their own life. But then people are different depending on circumstances. Which begs the question what is real?

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At the same time it's really hard to convey emotions and expression online. So much of communication depends on visual cues and gestures. You missed nuances and subtleties that you take for granted in real conversations.

 

In real life I'm quite dramatic in my gestures and use a lot of facial expressions to communicate. I can be quite silly really.

 

:dry:

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i'm very shy in real life but like when i'm online, i have my moments where i can act pretty crazy... i'll say that i'm definitely more open on here because a lot of people in real life don't approach me and I tend not to approach a lot of people my age because they aren't interested in the same things i am... and unfortunately, i haven't met anybody on here in person yet...

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I actually think I'm quite similar in both...

 

I think online/text/phone is a better way to ease into discussions with most people that I just meet, but if the chemistry is right and we get along well (be it a friendship or more) then it's as easy in person.

 

I think I just make the same emoticons in real life... :wink:

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When it comes to games, I think I can be more of a jerk there than in real life. Although I am pretty competitive in real life as well. But I like to think a game is a game and whatever happens does so in that context. So hopefully we can leave things there one the game is over sorta deal.

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Also, in terms of RL/online friends, I try not to treat either differently. I've met some people I've met online in different contexts and it's turned out well. One of the closest friends I had for a long time and who knew me the best was someone I met online. I value my online friendships like I would any other. I think I don't make as much of an effort to make new, deep online friendships as I would have when I was younger, but I think if I do meet someone I really like online I transition it to a real life friendship really quickly. I've done that with one DMer already and it worked well.

 

Basically I like people a lot, I like friends, and I don't care if that means I see them on a regular basis or not. A friend is a friend is a friend. And people are good. *nods*

 

Something like that. That being said, last night I went to a party where I didn't know half the people there. I didn't feel a need to meet the other people because I knew enough people there and I was having fun with them.

 

That being said, I ended up meeting and partying with everyone last night, even staying out later with the people I had just met after my friends I came to the party with had left for the night. :smile:

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I've avoided social sites like this one for so long... I have no FaceBook, no Twitter, no MySpace (when it still existed). My phone doesn't even send texts, let

alone surf the internet. In RL I am paranoid, security conscious, and a Liar. Few people know me, because it is so easy for me to read them, and put on the

appropriate mask. Body Language, tone and inflection, facial expressions... I learned to manipulate them all, and I do it unconsciously. *sigh* In RL, I have 

2 people I call friends, who see me without a mask, and one of them is family...

 

On here, I can't manipulate anything but the text. To me, that makes this community more real than the ones I live in, because it is what it is, not something I

manipulated into the form I wanted; I know that the responses you have are (most of the time) authentic. If you don't like me, it's because YOU don't, not because I

didn't want to deal with you one day and instinctively pushed all the right buttons to make it so.

I can be kind, and funny and flirty and serious and caring, all without worrying about how I'm using it to my advantage. I just... am.

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I act verrryy differently online than off, mostly because Im deathly shy irl where as here i dont seem to have that problem so much. Something about not being able to see who Im talking to makes it easier. I also think im a fair bit crazier online than irl cuz i dont have to worry about everyone judging me. I have very few rl friends, closer to none really, since im not a very social person and have a hard time making friends, so I value my online friendships a lot. It really bothers me when people are all like oh but since you havent met them they cant be actual friends. Personally I dont think it matters.

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I think that I'm a little more out there when online since there is less to be worried about. If someone reacts to somehting you say it's just words and, unlike in real life, you can often times just ignore the reaction if it is undesired.

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Just like to clarify something with Tsuki.

 

Because I don't know you very well so I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not. Erm...do you know that you sound like that villain in Despicable Me whatshisname??

I thought that everyone does that to a certain extent in social situation, manipulate people and events to get desired result. I think there is a school of thought that stated all social interaction are more or less a series of manipulation. Sometimes the result are completely undesired but then social interactions are mostly complex as it takes other people into the equation and all their preconceived ideas based on your façade. Do you mean you basically read their mind base on their body language or something else??

 

I can understand not joining Facebook as I didn't either. Mostly to do with being paranoid. I was stalked in RL so that paranoia is understandable. When I want to talk to someone on FB whom I haven't seen for a long time I used friends' FB page. They're mostly accamodating :P

 

Don't mean to cause offence or anything :)

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Not at all. And I always meant to watch that movie :).

 

I have an obsessive personality... I got WAY to into Psychology, social hypnotism, abnormal Psych, manipulation techniques, micro-expressions, body language,

suggestive influence, etc, ad infinitum... I dove too deep down that particular rabbit hole, while I was to immature (emotionally) to handle the information.

what that means is that I couldn't resist using it, and, to make it worse, I would tell people what I had done. Needless to say, it cost me almost all the friends I had,

and ensured that no one else wanted anything to do with me. I became bitter, and long before I had realized what I had done, I became a manipulative savant, 

at least in person. It takes a lot effort for me to accept what people say and intend without reading the ulterior motives that COULD be behind what they say.

Here, I may read an ulterior motive, but for the most part it's a huge game of "what if", and I can laugh off anything I think of because I have no baseline, no

face-to-face contact, no history of any given person.

That's why I'm good at IT customer service over the phone. It's enough contact that in a few sentences I know the client's education level, what phrases they

prefer (there is a difference in personality between the "you hear what I'm saying", the "you feel me", and the "see what I'm saying" that people use, they indicate

a preferred learning style), I can mimic accent to make them more comfortable, can put inflection in my voice that doesn't match the look of boredom on my face...

I get awesome feedback reports :).

It's easier for me to avoid doing that to anyone here, because I don't Psycho-analyze the books I read, and so I just treat this site as an awesome collaborative book :).

Turin's the villain :P

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Yes when I was younger and immature I too dove into that particular rabbit hole, mostly psychology, micro expression,philosophy and manipulation of body language. To me it was a matter of survival. I'm a black person in a predominant white society with a step father who looked down upon people from other cultural background with less than contempt. I became quite adept at lying and manipulation, the opposite of what my name meant, which is truth in Latin. Despite this I tried to behave with honour and came off second best. I find that some people were just too thick to be manipulated. I became quite an expert chameleon able to change to suit any given social atmosphere. Unfortunately I also have saviour complex wanting to be the white knight to those I loved. It makes for a complicated life to say the least. I could see the outcome and permutation in any given conversation and the end conclusion therof, thus I isolated myself.

 

With maturity and experience I learnt to be as honest and authentic as I possibly could be. I learnt to be true to myself and to embrace all facet of my personality. It was a long and painful journey. Now I can say with confidence that I like who I am. I am just..Me :)

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Always :). People always point the knives at the guy ON the throne... perfect decoy.

 

I know what you mean about the white knight tendencies, only problem is people tend to think I'm joking, or that my solution to the problem terrifies them...

A girl I knew, her boyfriend tried to kill her. I offered her a choice: poison, bullet, or meat cleaver. She thought I was joking. Then got scared of ME when she

realized I was quite serious. Another friend lost... *sigh*

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I just put my head in a book and pretend that I don't hear what people are saying. So a girl from school today told me that another girl is being nice to me just because she use me to get her work done. In a educational trip I just came back from, I washed her dishes and did a lot of small work. I didn't mind doing. I am never sure irl if people want to be my friend so they could use me to get their homework done, cheat from in tests and exams(I don't mind those things and sometime I would do their work just because someone has to do it) or that they like me as a person. I think its more of former and so I don't bother with close friends. Not a single friend knows how depressed person I am just because I offer a smile even if someone insults me. I don't have a single friend with whom I don't have a mask. There are girls I call friends irl but I just hang out with them during recess as they don't ignore and use me as much as others.

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 Funnily enough I offered the same choice to my Mother using third party...if you know what I mean. I WAS deadly serious. I mean it and was prepared to do everything to protect my family. The fall out from that was severe for a time. But it all ended up well, stepfather is slightly scared of me and reduced to someone to be pitied and my family still love me.

 

So all good on the family front at the moment.

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I'm just insistent because this happens to me until I actually refused to do it. In the process I find some really good friends along the way.

 

Saying NO can be really good for the soul. Especially against manipulators and bullies.

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