Forums and Friendship

Here’s the question: Do you need friends who judge your every action and then loudly proclaim their opinions in a public realm? More specifically do you need friends who go onto a forum and announce that you are selfish, self-absorbed and don’t give a shit about them?

Paul keeps telling me to stay away from forums. As far as he is concerned every fight that has flared up among our group of friends has involved forums and the online realm. I would say I have the tendency to agree although the involvement of the same people time after time does suggest the fights come down more often to a clash of individual personalities than the technology involved in the interactions.

This said, the inhibition-shedding nature of online communication may be a major contribution to these fights. Hidden behind nicknames and avatars, people like to vent online. They are freer in their opinions and emotional outbursts.

The problem arises when your online interactions involve people you see regularly face to face in ‘real life’. Because, like it or not, you cannot treat online and offline interactions as 2 separate things. What is said online colours offline interactions, and vice versa. The two worlds mesh. The online becomes an extension of the offline. In real life you can be quite cordial when you meet a friend you’ve been arguing with online, but on the inside, chances are you’ll be fuming.

This weird meshing situation means a fine line develops in terms of what is or isn’t acceptable to vent about because it can hurt the feelings of your online-offline friends. We’re all guilty of it. My commitment to honesty online has led me over the ‘personal offence’ line many times. The point is: if it’s your temper that regularly causes you to cross this ‘personal’ line, it’s time to either re-evaluate your online behaviour / persona or the nature of your supposed friendships.

I’m actually a pretty placid person who enjoys the mental challenge of debates. I prefer rationality and a reasonable approach when it comes to arguments. Unhealthy as it is, I sit on my anger and frustrations. I brood and fume over things. Perhaps this lack of a fiery personality has made me a target online. When you don’t normally rage back it makes you an appealing sounding (or scratching) board for the emotional and insecure.

I’m not saying I haven’t resorted to person attacks but normally I don’t initiate them. Normally it’s a defensive measure when I get hit with a nuclear storm of hurtful, irrational and excessive emotion.

And I’m really quite sick of it. Continually treating your friends like dirt online to boost your fragile ego is not something that is forgotten as soon as you head offline. At least I’m not forgetting it. Expect me to fight back…

Maybe I am self-absorbed. Maybe I have different priorities, particularly when it comes to my valuable free time. Maybe I have different values and ideas about what makes a good, loyal friend. Maybe I don’t like certain types of gatherings because I find them hollow and only superficially social (a dinner table of 20 people hardly allows you to talk to who you want to). So fucking what? That’s me.

I’m taking a break from the Pond. There are certain people there I just don’t want to be around online right now. Or offline for that matter… They make life unpleasant and I don’t want to be exposed to that anymore.

EDIT REMOVED
I apologise to G and whoever was offended or hurt by the inclusion of the additional paragraph. It was not intended as a self-serving attempt to make anyone feel that they owe anyone, or that anyone wants to laud anything over anyone else. Perhaps the language used made it come off that way. It was intended merely as a list of evidence to counter the claim that we don't do anything for our friends. I'm sorry.