Meeting New frens and building a relationship out of nothing

Yes, I have Internet friends
Is that really as much an admission of patheticness as it used to be? I suspect that a rather large number of people today who are active on the net have people there whom they would call their friends. I dun mind.....

A lot of people have internet friends. Perhaps I should really hyphenate that word to be internet-friends, in a similar fashion as you would say work-friends, old-friends, sport-frens or fuck-buddies some mix and some dun. This is to say that the word internet is not a descriptive enhancement to the word friend, but a conjunction that gives a completely different connotation.hehehehehe

The nature of the internet is anonymity. When you begin talking to someone online they have zero idea about who you really are, and conversely you have zero idea who they really are. In time people grow the false notion that, after their many hours of online chatting, that they have a pretty good idea of who their internet-friend is.

This couldn't be further from the truth and many a times I learn it the hard way…do I repent..NO!!!. When you're talking online there is the unmistakable ability to provide half-truths, leave out details you don't want to talk about, or present only those parts that you do want to talk about. Additionally there is very little room for holistic empathy online. That is to say that given the ability to hide yourself, it is increasingly difficult to pick-up on the subtleties of a person online as compared to in person. You may, after time, become aware of how that person reacts to things, how they type differently when they're in a certain mood etc. However you're always judging those observations with the veil of anonymity around it...the half-truths....the missing details.

The difference between real friends and internet friends comes down to the difference between implicit and explicit interactions. When you're looking at a real life friend in a conversation, there are dozens of subtle implied interactions both conscious and subconscious. You can pick up on the subtleties on-the-fly, without your opinion being countered by a well thought out, logically typed lie. There is no such thing as "putting someone on the spot" when you're talking online. They always have time to formulate their answers or mask their initial reaction and like wise I apply the same

An even more important aspect of knowing somoene online is that you have no idea in what manner they interact with people other than yourself. It's easy to create an island of interaction between two people. Even without intending to do so, people act differently around person A, then they do around person B, and certainly different when they're with person B, C and D. You can relate this dating. Many times a man and a woman will meet each other and have a grand time together. However eventually you they need to take that interaction to the next level involving friends and family, at which time things, all too often, turn out to be other than they seemed.

When the chips are all down, you really have no idea who you're dealing with online. Internet-friends have a place, and they can be helpful, fun and enjoyable. And sometimes that all you need sometimes that all I need