My brain tends to say, "Negative attention is better than no attention" too.
And if I think about, I guess I kinda do similar things.
I don't go to political forums, but I use the internet to avoid uncomfortable things too.
I am actually pretty anti-social at times, because I am worried what people will think about
and/or they won't like me, so I use the internet to form "virtual relationships"
so I won't have to risk being hurt in real life relationships.