Online Friends CAN BE Real Friends

[nachoo]

i have made a few close friends in video games.

[DeltrusDisc]

I've definitely noticed this, that there are people who feel the same with online interactions as in-person ones and those who don't. I personally just can't feel as emotionally tied to someone I've only interacted with online, but I know plenty of people who can and do. In a sense, the ones who can are likely to be better poised for the society of the future.

People who can't make that full connection online can get around it by meeting up with people they talk to a lot if they're close by, or if one is highly mobile. Being able to put physical presences to names like this, I've made some great RL friends.

For now, I feel kind of sorry for people who get really attached to others online. They seem to get dragged into a lot more drama and tied up in other people's problems. And then when they interact with types like me, it can be emotionally one-sided, and they're the one who feels it. But eventually cavemen like me will be selected out as society moves more online and emotions and social expectations move with it, and those who are better at seeing others online the same as others IRL will have the advantage.

It's good to know you at least recognize all of this, that gives you an advantage still, over those who will not/can not recognize it and even, in some cases as we've seen in this thread, ridicule it.

[Tooclassy]

I have made quite a few online friends from WoW. All were in my guild at some point, some quit, others still play but I have them on real ID and still talk to most of them quite a bit. Sadly the one I "knew" the best no longer plays, but still talk to him through e-mails, youtube, etc.

Friends are friends, whether they are in person or via internet.

[Dedweight]

People are completely different online than in person. Even people who are "being themselves" have annoying habits and tendencies that you can't experience via the internet.

Many are completely different in person than they are online but not all of them, there's a few of my online friends that I've never met in person but we have several mutual friends that have met each other offline that claim the others are exactly as they appear to be online. Sure they might have random annoying habits that you can't see over the internet but those are things everyone has so not entirely an issue for me personally.

I do agree with the OP, my online friends are as real, if not more real, as any friend I've had offline.

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

I don't consider online friends to be real friends because the distance does create a heavy level of impersonal barriers. I have had several online 'acquaintances', many ive talked several times a week with for years on end. But I still, even when i wanted to, couldn't accept them as friends and more importantly couldn't fathom them possibly accepting me as a 'friend'. Its just much too impersonal when text is all you see.

Even close friends from high school or early college years who have moved away and such, keeping in touch with them long distance over the internet is nice. But the friendship still wanes.

This is merely my take on the situation based on my experience. It takes ALOT for even an irl friend to really gain my trust, and even then more times than not im hesitant to really open up. Ive been fucked up several times by several extremely close irl friends, and generally expect the worst from new people even though I always give them a chance to prove me wrong about my expectations. With online friends, the ease of secrecy is just to much for me to ever fully trust. You'll never get a bonding 'accidental honesty' that you get with irl friends, those moments where someone's vulnerability is revealed (oftentimes by accident of carelessness or intoxication) in a way that makes you more open to believing they may be taken at face value, that you can trust them. When they go out of their way to make up for any, even small, favors you have done for them. Countless other examples of how I have always defined true 'friends' that are impossible for an online friend to ever truly happen.

But on the flip side, online friends usually have a good enough emotional and physical distance to a problem to be among the most useful during truly derisive situations. Some of the best and most sound advice I've gotten for some of the most serious problems in my life have been from online friends in situations where asking real life friends may have had too much baggage or involvement in the situation.

[Itisamuh]

Online friendships can be nice as long as common interests hold, but I find for the most part they completely dwindle if either of you get bored of whatever you were acquainted through. In all my years of online gaming, I have only really met one group of people that I got along with so well that I considered them my friends, and that was in online Halo 2 from 2004 until around 2009 when they quit. But, even though I consider them friends and I know they considered me a friend, we rarely talk anymore, maybe once or twice a year. Online friendships are simply not as powerful as real life friendships, and should not be used as substitutes. But even more than that, online relationships are nowhere near a real one. The fact that some people try to argue otherwise just screams desperation. As for the person who made this thread, I am sorry for the loss. And for the record, I think meeting online is perfectly valid for a friendship, or even a relationship, but if it never progresses to being in person, it will have very little substance. Just my opinion, not trying to argue.

[Xyanide]

Most of the friends that I still have were met online, many years ago. I don't get why people can think that you need to be able to TOUCH the person to be friends with them, makes no sense... I too lost my old guild master to a car crash, and it was one of the saddest days of my life, and we never once met IRL.. R.I.P. Tommy

[endersblade]

It happens rarely for me, but it HAS happened that I've met someone, guy or girl, in WoW, then moved to MySpace/Facebook, to phone, to meeting in real life. More frequently, it works down to the phone and stops there. Some people are just too far away lol. I currently have...I think two really good friends I met in WoW who I frequently text/call. Thing is though, I recognize the distance, and to me, they never could become 'best' buds of mine because of that. I also have a RL friend who used to play WoW that I hang out with frequently, and I feel a lot closer to him than to these others, even though I have hardly anything in common with my RL friend, and a whole lot more in common with the guys I call/text lol. It's just, not being able to see a face all the time sort of alienates them from me, in my head I guess. Not that I treat them any differently, but they just feel separate.

[Punxi]

I personally have a small handful of really close personal friends online, most of us met around the launch of FFXI and have been together ever since. Most of them I'll never get a chance to meet but I damn sure will be sad if I lost them as they are a awesome group of people to game with.

[PizzaSHARK]

I am sorry for your loss, and in my opinion you can form great friendship over the internet. I had a girl around my age in a guild i was in back in the day, and she also had her boyfriend in the guild. I was good friends with both of them, and we could spend hours every night talking on skype/ventrilo while we played together. However i noticed that the atmosphere had started to get tense between them the last couple of night, and sometimes I only spoke with one of them, and then when the other came on vent, the one i was speaking to suddenly had to go.

I did not pay much mind to their personal relationship, since i felt like i really had nothing to do with me so i did not speak anything of the matter. Then one day, the girl game on skype and called me and asked if i had time to talk, which i who has no life, of course does. Then without warning she started crying, and began to explain how she and the guy she was with just had broken up like an hour ago, and she had no one to speak to except me. So i sat and listened to her for about 3 hours, and talked to her about it. I seriously had no idea how to deal with the situation i just did what i thought was normal. Then when we had finished the call, about half an hour passed, and then the guy called me, also wanting to speak to me, about what he should do to get her back.

My brother and I and his girlfriend played this game and pretty much had a guild doing whatever the hell we wanted for a while before we got bored. I played the boyfriend, he played the girlfriend (with his actual girlfriend talking for him on Vent), we "broke up", and then my brother basically conned half the guild into doing whatever he wanted by saying I said mean things about him.

You can't trust people on the internet, not like you can in the real world.

By that definition, online "friends" can never be more than acquaintances.

Different people use different definitions, though.

And their definitions are wrong. Until you can touch someone, smell someone, look them in the eye, see their body language... you don't really know them.

Sorry to hear that about your friend. My sympathies.

IMO about the whole "friend" situation = A friend, is a friend, is a friend.. Period.

And to the "nay-sayers" of the whole thing about "well you don't REALLY know them". I ask you this, do you REALLY know anyone? You can have an "irl friend" you've known for years, and still not REALLY know them. So that whole argument they try and spew out, is just pure bullshit.

I'll say it once more.. A friend, is a friend, is a friend. Period.

Plus this

No. Absolutely not.

Even using webcams and voice chat through video conferencing in Skype or whatever, you are missing an enormous amount of non-verbal communication that's critical to being able to actually identify and empathize with someone. Honestly, the only people that would actually equate a video call on Skype with talking to someone face to face are people who haven't had a lot of experience with talking to people face to face.

It happens rarely for me, but it HAS happened that I've met someone, guy or girl, in WoW, then moved to MySpace/Facebook, to phone, to meeting in real life. More frequently, it works down to the phone and stops there. Some people are just too far away lol. I currently have...I think two really good friends I met in WoW who I frequently text/call. Thing is though, I recognize the distance, and to me, they never could become 'best' buds of mine because of that. I also have a RL friend who used to play WoW that I hang out with frequently, and I feel a lot closer to him than to these others, even though I have hardly anything in common with my RL friend, and a whole lot more in common with the guys I call/text lol. It's just, not being able to see a face all the time sort of alienates them from me, in my head I guess. Not that I treat them any differently, but they just feel separate.

Exactly this. Back when I played a lot of Valve shooters like CS, DoD, and TF2, I was part of a sizable gaming community. There were people who I spent hours nearly every day playing games with (and talking to since Valve games have decent VoIP by default, and use of a mic was required for our servers), and who I'd consider people I knew reasonably well.

Went to QuakeCon with a whole pile of them to meet up at our booth and it turns out that, while I got along with nearly everyone great in-game, there were several who in face to face interactions, I was about ready to slug.

Seriously. You can't really know someone without a lot of direct interaction, and you don't get that over the internet.

[aztr0]

Online friends can be real friends. I've had a few over the years and we keep in touch.

[Moinaldo]

Spending all your time on videogames and fast foods can get you this.
While I can understand that online friends can be friends, but best friends? Or even close? It takes a pretty lonely person to think that.

I don't know, I think it does not matter if you have a lot of partners (what people usually call friends), work partners, party partners, sport partners, etc... you can know a lot of people in real life, hang with them a lot, and not necessarily will they be reliable friends... you don't need to be a lonely being to find a good person online that has proven to be a trusty real friend...

[Gyroslave]

If you have to look for friends outside of your usual enviroment (town,school,job) then something might be wrong.

[pocky_rin]

I have both friends that don't play games and friends that do. In my town we have tea together a few times a week with the friends that do play games, and it's really good fun, we are pretty close. I've also met some guild members from germany and belgium before, we had a small guild meet up in Belgium. It was really nice, everyone was more or less how they are online, and were very friendly. One person was extremely shy but a very nice guy. I recommend anyone that has been in the same guild for several years to think about a guild meet, it's a lot of fun. You just identify who has the biggest house and all go over and watch movies together for a few days, have a barbecue, go site-seeing. I think you are missing out on a fun part of wow if you haven't met some of your friendly guild members IRL.

[DeltrusDisc]

If you have to look for friends outside of your usual enviroment (town,school,job) then something might be wrong.

Who said I or any of these other posters have to? As a teacher once told me, if you're not much of a drinker, the best place to go find friends probably isn't a bar.

It's the same sort of case here, I am a gamer, I like to play games, specifically a lot of computer games. What better place to find fellow people who like that, then IN those games/on forums for those games?

I also have friends from school who I have common interests with, I have a small community of other drummers I am friends with, and a friend who I enjoy trying new beers with once a week or so, and we discuss current events, watch a movie, etc. And then recently I started dating a girl from my summer college course. So what can I say? I have a healthy balance. I never said I ONLY have friends online, I simply said online friends can be real friends too, if you let them.