Is there anyone else feeling really lonely? I can't connect with people. I can't connect with people in real life, and I can't connect with people on the Internet anymore either. It doesn't click. The Internet feels really aggressive and sarcastic now. I have no friends at all. I don't have a single person I can turn to and talk to honestly and openly, or joke around with. Not having anyone to talk to is really wearing me down.
Sometimes I'll talk to people and think they're my friend, but find out they don't really care about me at all. I don't mean that in a bad or spiteful way, just that I was some random person drifting around in the background for them. I guess it's because I interact with so few people on a personal level that all of those interactions become magnified.
I didn't know where to post this. I thought of a few other places, but I was afraid I'd just get the sort of sarcastic and aggressive response that I want to avoid.
pretty much yeah. it's been worse for me in the past than it is now because I have a few people I can talk to now.
Keep searching bud, there's at least one person out there that will truly click with you and when you find them it'll help you out a lot I think.
Me to a T.
I'm sure I know what friendship is. I'm sure I used to have internet friends, though we drifted apart.
I'm almost convinced it's just a side effect of the modern world and how it encourages people to behave.
I can relate a great deal. I don't go outside, so no IRL friends, and the way internet culture is now wears me down very quickly. I'm so tired of the bottomless layers of 'irony' and sarcasm and how it can excuse any degree of lacking quality. I can't even tell what's being discussed or what people think anymore. It's all masked by so many levels of nonsense that they could be saying anything. That's bad enough on its own, but that nonsense is always so vitriolic and aggressive that having a conversation feels more like a fight to the death than anything else. No one can ever be wrong, no one can ever be anything less than 100% in favor of an idea, no one can ever back down, no one can ever compromise, no one can ever be moderate.
So now I have almost no internet friends. The few I do have, I drive away by being too depressing. I have nothing to talk about except bad things, and eventually that wears down even the most patient, understanding friends.
I'm not sure what to do. The only groups I've ever truly enjoyed have been based on or derived primarily from anonymous discussion. But imageboard culture has become the exemplar of that aggressive sarcasm OP mentioned and text boards are so slow and empty. I like that 4-ch goes slowly and hasn't changed much, but it'd be nice to have a closer group of friends to to talk to more regularly than once every few days.
>>1-5
Here's an idea, why don't we all be friends? We all feel the same way don't we?
there is always the 4-ch IRC to chat
My sense of scale is totally off. Every interaction feels like a connection because I so rarely interact with others. Being alone for too long really fucks you up. It warps your intuition of human relations; The hyper-introspection which is normal to me causes me to become paranoid as I project it onto others, imagining that they consider this event for weeks at least. Every time I interact with someone I instinctively reach out to them. I can't tell if they're just someone else passing by or if I just made some semblance of a real and empathic human connection which I shouldn't fail to recognize and try to turn into a friendship. It must be awkward for the other person to see someone like me.
That might work. I'm worried that it would actually be bad for people like us to congregate together, since we might just feed off each other's loneliness and end up in an unhealthy situation, but I suppose even that would be better than nothing.
I have the same problem. I'm ashamed to admit it, but every time I speak to anyone new in any context, even if I just met them, the first thing I think about is how maybe this one won't abandon me and will take me away from where I am. Maybe I could even make them happy in some way as well. But nothing ever happens, no one wants or is capable of doing that. I wish I could give up and try to have a more realistic, healthy goal, but I don't want anything else anymore.
>I'm worried that it would actually be bad for people like us to congregate together, since we might just feed off each other's loneliness and end up in an unhealthy situation
It's not like that at all. Don't let your impulse to avoid closeness cloud your judgement. If we were all friends, we wouldn't be as lonely, so feeding off of each other's loneliness (whatever that means) would not be an issue.
>I was thinking that it might become something like those communities of similarly isolated people, the ones who are horribly bitter and angry with the world and do nothing but reinforce each other's hate
Well I don't see a lot of hate here, honestly.
I think it might start to get bad in here
And when I reach out to others who are alone or hurting like I am they ignore me or we can't connect. I want to empathize. I want to be human with them. The worst part about our misery is that every one of us is miserable alone.
> they ignore me or we can't connect.
I will try to prove you wrong. Skype name is in the link field, friend.
Recently, I've become so desperate for human contact that I've tried to reconnect with a group I used to be very active in. They're a pretty typical 4chan-derivative chat, lots of sarcasm and banter and 'memes'. They're good people at heart, but it's been a few days and I've come to realize that the longer I spend in their company, the more like them I become. I've become more aggressive and short and confrontational, as if whatever's happened to the internet is contagious.
I don't want to be like that. My recent behavior disgusts me. But I have no one else anymore. Is there any solution? I want friends so badly, but if the only way to do so is to let myself become someone I find appalling, then I guess I'll have to be alone.