In my weekly quest to actually get a few things out of the way I ran into a situation and I began to wonder how other people felt about this. Strangely enough this happened a few times last week.

I had been in touch with a friend who I had a falling out with. Things had been allowed to cool for many months. I was keen to make sure that person knew that I was sorry so I could, at the very least, relieve myself of some of the guilt I had over causing someone pain.

Their reaction was something quite unexpected, basically saying that we never meant anything to each other and that we were just letters on a screen.

I pondered this Saturday and happened to run into two of my fellow therapists out in town. So I grabbed them and asked them about the current thinking about Online Friends etc. Much to my surprise, their attitude was that they had less of an impact on people and that they weren’t “as real” as flesh and blood friends. I think the word “distractions” were used as well. When I countered with my theory that a person will get as much out of relationship as they put in, they got hung up on the online aspect. It wasn’t until I compared them to pen pals that I even saw a glimmer of recognition. This runs contrary to my experience and observations on the Internet. I don’t follow this line of thinking and I feel that online friends can be as close as regular friends.

So I am still pondering.

I was wondering what other people think about the validity and legitimacy of online friends and their impact in our lives.

As always, well spoken opinions and observations are welcome.

SJ

I agree that "online" shouldn't make much of a difference, and certainly that you get out of a relationship what you put into it.

I was "online" back in the 80s, and I can trace back each and every one of my current friends from back then to "online" origins. Though I had other friends from "real life" back then, and ones that I thought were very good friends, those friendships didn't survive. Some people moved away, and never kept in touch. When I moved to another part of town a lot more friendships crumbled. The ones that I'd met online could survive that. Even the ones that I spent more time with in real life at that point. One couple moved to another city, and I saw them maybe once a year for almost 8 years. We're still good friends. They're back in town now, so we see each other a lot more often.

There is certainly a different aspect to the relationship when it's an online contact, however, I don't think that it has to be a matter of more or less.

There are people that I've "met" via LumenLab here that I've never seen face-to-face, but I'd be more than willing to put them up in my home. Some, in fact have an invitation to do so, if they ever want to visit this little corner of the globe.

ETA: 3:47AM. Leave the light on!

FWIW
Personally Im not very active on many forums other then LL, but I do have profiles on a few "social networking" sites. And hands down, I have done 100 times more meaningful social networking here on LL. Avatars here are like familiar faces, and the people on these boards are just awesome.

I agree with Supra, allot of these people here at LL, I would invite into my home if they were in my area. And I have been invited over by some good folks here.

Lately it seems as if 85% of my "real life" friends either:

A) Do too many drugs ( and/or meds)
B ) Don't do enough drugs (and/or meds)
C) Don't drink enough (good beer)
or
D) Drink too much (hard booze)

But I guess thats kind of par for the course at my age (late 20's)

SJ, as a therapist this must be an interesting question to pose to the fellas here at LL. "Real-life", long term friendships seem harder to sustain for males then females for some reason. I think I know what Freud says about that ...
What's your take?

I have many online friends over a few different websites. Many, like my fellow Mods here on Lumenlab, I have not met in person, yet consider to be good friends and would not hesitate to invite into my home at anytime.

I grew up on BBSes and had many "online" friends transition into "in person" friends. I even met a girlfriend or two on those BBSes.

I met my wife through family friends, but we corresponded for several years by email, snail mail, and telephone before meeting, and marrying. We are happily married now with three beautiful children.

Friends are friends. I do not distinguish between online or not.

my two cents...

First off. To understand Freud, you MUST find out what was done to him...I'll leave it at that.

My take on that? While it may seem so on the surface, Im not sure we can make such a generalization. But if I was to hazard a guess I would say that in western culture, women are socialized to form longer term bonds and to facilitate bonds in a more rapid fashion than men. For our style of living this would enhance their personal survivability. Men, typically are socialized to be more mobile than women as they search for better resources for themselves and their family. Their focus is more on self sufficiency.

This attitude has seen great changes in the past 30 years however and I foresee a time when men and women can pick and choose the style of socialization they desire or require.

From my personal experience, I have seen many of my male friends drop off the face of the earth for the most obvious of reasons: Kids.
I have a strong desire to provide for and protect my children. I also have an overwhelming desire to pummel anyone who even looks at them wrong.
I love my kids.
And as such, I often will do things with them other than with friends. My priorities shifted into a mode of "I need to be present for my children".

I think THAT shift contributes to a slightly less long term sustainment of my male relationships.

SJ

I hear that...

Many of my friends are people that I've known for 15 or more years. As I mentioned before, most of these people I met in an online setting, however the fact remains that they've been very much long-term friends. I fully expect that those of you whom I consider to be my friends will continue to be so for a long time to come... Speaking of which, I left the front light on, D, but nobody arrived.

My wife, on the other hand, has basically no friends that she's known for more than about 10 years (Approximately the age of our oldest daughter) and those are all ones that she met because of the children. Recently she's made some friends outside of that arena, but it is quite recent, about the last year or so.

I find it difficult in that among my oldest friends, I am about the only one that has children. That does cause me to miss a lot of events and outings, and I don't think that my childless friends really understand, but they're willing to make allowances for that.

In my group I was the last one to marry & have kids & I really didn't understand until I had kids of my own.

In fact i'd go on record saying I had no clue whatsoever.

I was passed out in your garage. You DID buy me a keg! <3

Yeah, but did you have to puke on my car?

I knocked but no one answered. Why was the door locked???

I hope those flowers I peed on are okay.

I thought it would keep the thieves awayf rom your car...

Good plan... But it's not so good for the paint, y'know?

D: So that's what happened to those. Damn! What have you been drinking?
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Hmmm...apparently I CAN hit the broad side of a Toyota when Im hammered...

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Yeah, I think I'm headed for the car wsh today...

It could also be considered a question of goodness of fit for personality type. Lately I have spent some time on a social network site and, for me at least, it is soooooo much easier to communicate in my quirky way when people already know me. Over there I can throw out a sentence that includes monkeys, star dust and shot guns and not a single person wonders if I'm high or crazy or dangerous. A lot of my humor is that much better because the weird things I say are so different from the very button-down existence I lead.

I have actually met someone from this forum (and before someone asks, no, it was just about projector building ), and while the conversation went smoothly enough online, wasn't so much the case in person. But outside of DIY stuff, how much do engineers and artists have in common?

Not that it isn't nice having a pen pal, and kudos to folks that translate well into that format of communication, it's just not that everyone does.

You really hit the nail there Duchess. IMO, its really based on accepting personalities especially when meeting someone in person the first time and first impressions are made . Online we have have that opportunity to rethink what we are communicating and then correct or approach things at a different angle to not insult whilst face to face things can begin ackwardly wrong even from a simple hello from body language, facial expressions...yaddi, yadda. I think that 'Breaking the Ice' continues in every step taken towards a freind/freind relationship from penpal to knocking on your door, it all boils down to accepting the difference of our personalities and who we are and some sort of trust (and I'm using this broadly) is attained.

Never met a broad I trusted. (Who am I paraphrasing?)