Internet friends

[mortensorchid]

I have made a few friends on the internet, I'm sure you all have in some way or another. We use the internet to date people now, but to make an actual friend that way? Yes, it happens. Here is a short article on how internet friends are actually just as important as a friend you'd meet otherwise.

 

https://www.good.is/features/issue-38-internet-friends-are-real-friends

[preraph]

Back a decade ago, I was making a lot of internet friends and then I was trying to meet them in person at a concert we'd both want to go to because we met on the fan board. Here's my track record with these internet friends.

 

1) Gay guy. Lots of personal exchanges and met him in Bath when I went to England. Not long after, he chose to betray another internet friend of mine who was being stalked by an internet guy she met once. We were "blocking" him as best we could as he was trying to pump everyone for information on her and everyone knew the story. This friend I'd met, I guess none of it was real to him because we were in US and he was safely in England, but he just totally betrayed her and put her in some danger giving this guy info on her. So we tearfully blocked him and were very hurt by it.

 

2) I used to have a Kahlua and Cream before bedtime and chat via the old Messenger to a female friend I met on the same fan board. When the artist went on tour, she invited me up to Northeast US to go with her to the concert. I accepted. As soon as I accepted and started trying to send her the money for my ticket, she ghosted on me. She's the one who invited me and then she just disappeared.

 

3) Met one friend who lives in a suburb of the town I do that was actually convenient to meet up with, so we started going to a thing or two together. She knew some of my old crowd but wasn't part of it exactly because back then she was a stripper and just wouldn't have fit in. I like her. She's just a nice old grandma now, but once a stripper, always a stripper, I guess. I started taking her to my favorite restaurant and I had a certain server who was a cute young guy. I mean, we're approaching 60 by now. But she has to see if she still has it and comes on to the poor server. I would never take her to any of my favorite restaurants again because that was embarrassing. But if that wasn't enough, she went off her meds and just went to bed and you couldn't get her out of the house anymore except to do the one thing she had to do, which was pick the grandkids up from school. So that faded.

 

4) One guy I already knew I wasn't physically attracted to kept trying to meet and said he was in town on business a lot. But first we ended up both at the same concert in England. He wanted to go with me, but I wouldn't let him. I did a little search on him before I even agreed to meet him in the lobby there and I was honest about it, and he got all paranoid about that, which only made me think he really had something to hide (probably wasn't paying his child support, I finally decided because the more I found out about his employment and him being friends with the owner, the more sense it made). But he could never just be honest and up front. I didn't see the point, but I went to dinner with him once while he was in town and he was all paranoid about the cafe taking his credit card. He was just so suspicious acting. Anyway, I was about to do the fade and Number 3 up there started having dinner with him for awhile and took the focus off me when he was in town - until she went off her meds.

 

5) My only friend who I stayed friends with that I met online was the woman who was being stalked by the guy I mentioned in Number 1 up there. But there is always a big adjustment when you meet them face to face, but we got through that and she's got a little one now, but we still try to catch up a couple times a year. We don't live anywhere near each other though. She came to see me once a few years ago.

 

So my track record of being able to trust people I meet on the internet is very low at this point. I do think Skyping helps because although I have not had the catfish problem, it just gives you a better idea of who the person really is, so I think that makes the odds a bit better. Hard to fake who you are that way.

[ASG]

I've made several internet friends over the years. I was an early adopter of chat rooms, in the 90's, when mIRC was all the rage and met LOADS of people. Some of them are still in my life, others disappeared with time, but no major dramas.

 

I've made friends in forums as well. Even here on LS.