[DechanDawa]

Recently I disconnected from several cyberspace friends. Do you ever get sick of cyberspace???

I have had some nice friends in cyberspace but there always comes a time when the cyberfriendship is not satisfying, and I feel the need to let go.

I have read where some people have had cyberfriends for 8 years. Sometimes one person will simply disconnect without warning.

Recently, I feel healthier because I now desire to make new friends in real time. Join some clubs. Go to some events, or places to engage with others.

I think it is healthy to get sick of being too much in cyberspace. What do you think?

I think if you enjoy Tali, than you should stay friends.

[DechanDawa]

Oops. I just went back and deleted the part about my friend Tali, who lives in India. I am in America. We have been friends for 6 months.

I really like Tali and we have great conversations and have exchanged pictures. But what I said is that after awhile I get tired of always just imagining the person. In real time Tali would be someone I am sure I would meet for coffee, and hang out with.

But I really don't know.

The people I met on online dating sites were a big disappointment in real time. Ugh.

Tali. Yeah. I guess I will keep him as a cyberfriend even though we will never meet in real life. I just like him.

Originally Posted by DechanDawa

Recently I disconnected from several cyberspace friends. Do you ever get sick of cyberspace???

I have had some nice friends in cyberspace but there always comes a time when the cyberfriendship is not satisfying, and I feel the need to let go.

I have read where some people have had cyberfriends for 8 years. Sometimes one person will simply disconnect without warning.

Recently, I feel healthier because I now desire to make new friends in real time. Join some clubs. Go to some events, or places to engage with others.

I think it is healthy to get sick of being too much in cyberspace. What do you think?

I totally agree. Friends in real life is more fulfilling. We humans designed for face-to-face interactions. This virtual world thing is ruing us.

But isn't making friends online with people you haven't met dangerous?

[DechanDawa]

Originally Posted by Nickname

I totally agree. Friends in real life is more fulfilling. We humans designed for face-to-face interactions. This virtual world thing is ruing us.

But isn't making friends online with people you haven't met dangerous?

It could be dangerous, but more, it is just stupid. Take my friend Tali in India. Yes, he sent me pictures of himself, his neighborhood, city etc. --- but this could be false. We talk about a lot of stuff and Tali is a good communicator so if he is faking being who he is, he is a pretty good con. But now we email hardly at all...every few months, and that feels more appropriate than daily or weekly contact.

In general, I think it is not very fulfilling. The men I met in person after talking to them online...it was a big disappointment. They didn't look like their pictures. They didn't appear as successful or sophisticated as they did online. I felt it was a waste of time.

I have been finding cyberspace rather frustrating lately, and that is a good thing, I think. I think it is okay to go online to find out information and maybe get some support. But to continue on and on seems to be a kind of addiction.

Even if the people I meet are "real" and properly represent themselves, it is frustrating to not be able to bring the friendship to the next level, like going out and doing stuff together.

I agree that it can ruin us if we let it. We have to stay aware. When we are spending too much time in cyberspace we need to take a holiday...into real life.

[darlofozz]

I have had some very serious online friendships, one is still in place today 15 years after making contact, although that friendship is now limited to Facebook now, we started out as a group of guys with a shared interest in Wrestling and playing a Wrestling E-Fed Roleplay Game and an interest in creative writing.

We talked nearly every day for the best part of 10 years, although now we ocassionally message on Facebook.

I have tried Online Dating not with much success, I met my current girlfriend 4 years ago for the first time, when I realised I had probably known her when I was a kid as I was friends with her sister when I was a kid, my girl played hard to get for 4 years but that time waiting paid off in December when we got together.

Our biggest hurdle has been from Facebook from someone who is jealous of her, so while I value online friendships I also seenthe negative side to such friendships...

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[DechanDawa]

Originally Posted by darlofozz

I have had some very serious online friendships, one is still in place today 15 years after making contact, although that friendship is now limited to Facebook now, we started out as a group of guys with a shared interest in Wrestling and playing a Wrestling E-Fed Roleplay Game and an interest in creative writing.

We talked nearly every day for the best part of 10 years, although now we ocassionally message on Facebook.

I have tried Online Dating not with much success, I met my current girlfriend 4 years ago for the first time, when I realised I had probably known her when I was a kid as I was friends with her sister when I was a kid, my girl played hard to get for 4 years but that time waiting paid off in December when we got together.

Our biggest hurdle has been from Facebook from someone who is jealous of her, so while I value online friendships I also seenthe negative side to such friendships...

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Thanks for this comment. You sure are experienced in cyberfriendship. But I think it is so cute you might have known your girlfriend when you were both kids. And that she played hard to get. She sounds like a real keeper. Congrats!

[darlofozz]

Originally Posted by DechanDawa

Thanks for this comment. You sure are experienced in cyberfriendship. But I think it is so cute you might have known your girlfriend when you were both kids. And that she played hard to get. She sounds like a real keeper. Congrats!

Thanks for the reply...

I also think it is interesting and somewhat amusing that I possibly knew her when we were younger, I have just over 5 years on her, I am 34 in May, she is 29 in July, so a 6/7 yr old when I was 11/12 would have passed by without me giving it much thought about what would over 20 years later...Her parents certainly remember me, but I dont remember them although I did used to go around with her sister who was going out with my best mate at the time...The little joke we have is that she is a female Harry Potter, the kid who lived under the stairs as there is only a few people in our village knows her...We actually both played hard to get, we first met properly in 2011, spoke on and off for 4 years and got back in touch in October last year and what we have now started then, I am happy it turned out this way though, I am a better person today than I was then

I would say I have good experience in maintaining online friendships as I already pointed out, but one thing I would not do though is let those friendships take over my life, I have known people who have as I used to put it "Live for MSN" in that they could not wait to talk to there online buddies, I find that to be dangerous, not only can a person become isolated, but the potential for danger is massive, I always had a big circle of buddies online, but I limited my inner circle, as I said some of us played wrestling e-fed wrestling roleplay games and there was a group of 4, sometimes 5 or 6 who stuck together and it was great 😂

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[DechanDawa]

Who needs the Internet when you have a girlfriend who is like a female Harry Potter? Well done, both of you!

[darlofozz]

Originally Posted by DechanDawa

Who needs the Internet when you have a girlfriend who is like a female Harry Potter? Well done, both of you!

lol...

I do wonder why I bother online sometimes, especially with the abuse she has been getting lately

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[DechanDawa]

Take her out for ice cream.

[darlofozz]

Originally Posted by DechanDawa

Take her out for ice cream.

I always found the quickest way to a womans heart is cakes and chocolate 😂

As my good lady has a little girl from a previous relatiobship I found the way to charm her is with sweets...My mother calls it Love at first sweet 😂

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I think the internet has its good points and its bad. It should never be seen as a replacement for life in the "real world."

Yeah I agree, a bit of online is good but not so it takes over.

I don't make close friendships easily either IRL or online so if someone I like disappears online I find it unsettling (I had an online friend who died and that was a strange kind of loss).

Hope you get the best balance for you Dechan.

[Skeezyks]

The Skeezyks fears he is addicted...

[DechanDawa]

I'm exiting cyberspace.

[Swabbingred]

I'm not so fond with my social relations online. I barely frequent them like I did in my younger adolescent days. I feel virtually disconnected from the raw emotion and vibration I can get in meat-world. I also dislike the virtual toughness that people often display online when they are ever so fragile in real life... would love to put people on the spot right now but this isn't the community for it.

[stewartmays1]

i love the internet/cyberspace but it can get depressing at times so i take breaks from it tho i do have a online friends who i like to talk to on a daily basis

[Lunella]

I really value my online friendships, especially ones where my friends have resources they allow me to use - knowledge of various things, having a lawyer friend for example is awesome, and I provide them with skills they could use some help with.

I mainly value a lot of my online friendships because I am autistic and I find it very hard to find other autistic friends from the UK - but when I do they for some reason are the best kind of friendships I ever had and we stay in contact for years. I just get on so well with other autistic people, don't really understand why, I'm assuming it's just because we can relate better.

For friends I have from like Argentina and Japan, I would like to meet them some day when I go travelling so I hang on to them.

As for like the Internet in general - I try to avoid places like Reddit or just really trollish places because it's so boring and so very negative and I really can't be bothered with crappy negative people who just want to cause people to be annoyed or upset, as that's selfish and you don't know what that person is going through offline, so I always try to be polite and nice online.

[-jimi-]

Originally Posted by George H.

I think the internet has its good points and its bad. It should never be seen as a replacement for life in the "real world."

I think real life has some good points. But it can never really be a replacement for online life.

[DechanDawa]

Originally Posted by DechanDawa

Oops. I just went back and deleted the part about my friend Tali, who lives in India. I am in America. We have been friends for 6 months.

I really like Tali and we have great conversations and have exchanged pictures. But what I said is that after awhile I get tired of always just imagining the person. In real time Tali would be someone I am sure I would meet for coffee, and hang out with.

But I really don't know.

The people I met on online dating sites were a big disappointment in real time. Ugh.

Tali. Yeah. I guess I will keep him as a cyberfriend even though we will never meet in real life. I just like him.

Update: It seems like Tali is a much bigger drinker than he let on. Every time he sends me a message he is coming off a huge drinking binge. As I don't drink it leaves a big gap in our communication. Another cyberspace friendship about to bite the dust. Because Tali always seems like these days he is in a bad mood and he has a dark and brooding air about him. But I have known other people IRL from India and the ones I have known have all been fairly dramatic. A mysterious people... Oh, I also saw online that India has the greatest percentage of depressed people, who often go untreated. Tali treats his depression with "dark rum."

[Anonymous37919]

If you mean you become fed up with the Internet, then yes, I certainly feel that way at times.

Forums are kind of boring now, and no, that doesn't mean I relocated to Facebook. Forums were better years ago, back when there was more stuff to chat about. But lonely people can get addicted to them. They are also full of spoilers in regards to films, games and TV shows, and trolls that ruin the atmosphere are what put me off most forums for a while.

Never post on bluelight.org because the users on there are morons. It is always good to share your problems with fellow aspies, as they say a problem shared is a problem halved. But most neurotypical people don't care much for my rants online.

YouTube and wrestling is all I really care about. I'm also on Wikipedia a lot, and I buy things on Amazon and look at extras castings. Right now, my life is depressing because I am finding it hard to find good support workers. This is more to do with anxiety than wanting them for company, but it is never good to be too reliant on them either. These aides move on eventually and this can be hard to accept.

[Anonymous37919]

I find dating sites are a huge waste of time as well. The disjointed English is a turn off, plus the high volume of time wasters and silly gimmicks. Also, I am too lazy to fill in the whole profile which is sometimes mandatory. Nobody is going to care once they see my boring headshot anyway. Oh, brother.

Did you know there is usually a catch to sign up for these advanced features? Match.com ain't free and I know I would never be attractive enough to anyone on there either. Why put your money down the drain?

Plenty of Fish is a pile of crap. Flirtbox is too. So I tried joining one about autism specific relationships and found that I could not message hardly anyone because of some filtering issue. Maybe it is a glitch.

Facebook is boring. Bebo was better, but unless you already have a social life, you aren't likely going to find one on Facebook, Myspace or Twitter. Meetup is the best one I have come across because it enables you to find people who like the same things, but I gave up looking for a social life because of my anxiety, and all that carry on occurred with my former support workers.

I once thought about getting into web design, but I had no idea what HTML scripts were from Adam, so I once tried to edit the tables for to make a layout for a crummy site I had, with ideas pinched from elsewhere. Double Dutch results.

[DechanDawa]

Originally Posted by Peter A

If you mean you become fed up with the Internet, then yes, I certainly feel that way at times.

Forums are kind of boring now, and no, that doesn't mean I relocated to Facebook. Forums were better years ago, back when there was more stuff to chat about. But lonely people can get addicted to them. They are also full of spoilers in regards to films, games and TV shows, and trolls that ruin the atmosphere are what put me off most forums for a while.

Never post on bluelight.org because the users on there are morons. It is always good to share your problems with fellow aspies, as they say a problem shared is a problem halved. But most neurotypical people don't care much for my rants online.

YouTube and wrestling is all I really care about. I'm also on Wikipedia a lot, and I buy things on Amazon and look at extras castings. Right now, my life is depressing because I am finding it hard to find good support workers. This is more to do with anxiety than wanting them for company, but it is never good to be too reliant on them either. These aides move on eventually and this can be hard to accept.

I am not an aspie, although I am beginning to have a great appreciation for aspies. I like to watch their YouTubes channels.

I am trying to get off of cyberspace because in my loneliness it became a way to cope. I think that was okay. I was very depressed. However, now I am pulling myself out of the depression, and I think it would be healthier for me to get back out into real life more.

When I decided to disconnect from the Internet except for business purposes, I found out I could not do it!!! I started trying to disconnect about 6 weeks ago. On Facebook I unfriended all but a few close friends and family, and that helped me not feel addicted to Facebook anymore. I have cut back on emailing my cyberspace friends. As I said, if all they are going to do is email to tell me how hung over they are from partying, I don't have time for that. I get addicted to forums but then get disgusted and usually end up signing off. My biggest time waster is YouTube. I love YouTube. When everyone else was watching YouTube I never watched it and wondered what all the fuss was about. But now I am addicted and can watch things I am interested in for hours.

I don't have television, or Neflix. I stopped borrowing DVD's from the library.

I just want to experiment with not using any social media for a set period of time, like maybe 3 months or 6 months, or even a year.

I don't think all this social media networking has enhanced my personality or life. I read less, spend less time on hobbies, and even procrastinate important life tasks. So all in all I will still keep trying to exit cyberspace.

[DechanDawa]

I know that some people have used dating sites with success. I have not had success. The few dates I had were disasters with the men not anything like in their profiles. They were kind of nasty. I also tried going quickly to phone calls. Again, when talking to the men who I selected or who selected me I easily could feel there would be no further attraction. Some of these men would not take a hint and would keep calling back.

I am once again going to try to start a social media fast, maybe starting on Easter. I expected that it would be easy but it is proving difficult, which makes me more motivated to do it.

Just a thought...I think the people who are successful on dating sites are very focused about the kind of person they want. You can see how this would result in a lot less time wasted. I might try this. The problem is that some sites don't actually show you people based on your preferences. So I would have to find the sites that would do this.

Also, it is probably just wise to realize that no matter what you write in your profile, people will choose you based on your looks. Men do this with women. But women also do this. And, people are particular. For instance, generally, women don't like it when men wear hats in their pictures, but about 80% of the time they do. The same with sunglasses. Men don't seem to like pictures of women and their pets. I have heard them say this. I kind of get turned off when men have pictures of them and their dog, like the dog is some kind of prop. And I especially don't like it when there are tons of pictures of kids and grandkids. Just a plain up front photo will do.

Come to think of it, don't think I have the energy to do online dating sites. OMG. They are such time wasters!!!