I've heard this a lot and...

[Alaska]

I am glad that you agree that someone you can talk to, etc. is a necessity, for friendship.

I think we have a communication failure going on here.
What I meant and didn't say clearly enough, was that you need to want to give the friend the same as what you want from them. We can't just take from the friend(s). As Aspies, we can forget too easily about the needs of those closest to us, due to our narrow focus.

Perhaps it will work if we say that we should have some shared interests, ideals/mentalities? That way we can allow for those differences that you mentioned.

This forum is nice to help us figure this stuff out together and practice with each other instead of trying to get it right off with NTs. Thanks.

 

[dragonwolf]

I think there's a deeper bond that happens in person (thanks, biology!), but that doesn't mean you can't have friends who you know only via the Internet. I've got great friends in several different parts of the world who I've known for years and have never once spent a day with them in the same room, yet we wouldn't hesitate to welcome each other into our homes.

I think a lot of the idea that online friends aren't "real" friends stems from the initial fears of the internet and the anonymity it provides (or, more accurately, used to provide, it provides a lot less than people realize these days). I find the whole "you don't really know who you're talking to" to be ludicrous. How many times have people reacted with astonishment when they find out the person they thought they knew (in real life) for decades turns out to have been in some way deceiving them the entire time, whether it be adultery, theft, or even murder? The simple truth is that you never really know anyone. We get by in life on the faith that enough people are good enough, at least for a while. Our entire society functions on that faith.

 

[Chance]

Maybe I'm just a dork, but I can only do the face to face thing for a short time and I get exhausted.
I suck at meeting people (strangers) face to face. I always have. I get nervous my words get stuck and I just usually feel like some lame ass fool, who is dumb as a rock. It embarrasses me, and I get mad at myself, because I want so bad to be able to not be the out of place goof ball.

I was never allowed to speak my mind in the "real world", when I was younger. If I dared to do so, I was told to shut up, maybe smacked around, or told in a hundred different ways how stupid I was.

I basically went mostly silent for much of my life. I still don't say much. But on here (specifically speaking of Aspie Central) there seems to be an unspoken freedom where we can be the real us. I respect that privilege and I see it as basically a gift that I am to honor.

I'm basically a newbie... I barley even know how all this works, but instantly it sort of felt like a home I never had. We get to let stuff out and deal with stuff, and hear other peoples stories. I am ASD, on here who cares, most of us are. The people here who are not, they are here trying to understand us, and thats cool too. You are my tribe, my kind of people, for the most part we get each other in some degree. Those before us had nothing. They lived in silence... I feel honored that we don't have to do that anymore.

It doesn't matter if we are half a world apart, or 10 miles apart. It doesn't matter if your white, black, or a being from another planet. I don't see people as races, colors, genders, or anything else. I see us as a group of people who have one thing in common... We have some "thing(s)" that makes us different from what the world has labeled as "normal".

On here, I can spill my guts, or read about someone else spilling theirs. To me that is a very good bunch of friends being friends? I may be wrong, and if I am please just don't even tell me... I like it the way it is.

I love to write, the words don't get stuck as much, and you never know it when they do...

I am all about bettering my life... I speak with a counselor once a week. I have spent a lot of time and money trying to overcome as much of this as I can. Yet I cant tell him half of what I will openly write on here.

I look forward to reading what people write... Its real, sometimes its hard core, sometimes it breaks my heart, but thats what is so beautiful about it.

Out in the real world I am trying so hard to function, and not be a dork, I don't grasp a lot of what is being said. I cant express my emotions real well, and people think I don't have any sometimes... they have no clue about what we have to deal with, or what is really inside us.

On here I can soak it up, think about it, and appreciate that there are people like me.

I don't think having ASD is an easy life, but on the flip side it might be a gift. I read so many stories how so many of us were abused and misunderstood, and what they have overcome. It opened up a whole new world to me. I hope it means something to others to be able to have a place where we are for once basically free to be who we really are.

Friends to me are people who share a common interest and care about each other. It's pretty simple really and it can be that light in a dark place for someone who is struggling.

I guess what I wanted to really say is... Thank you to the people who made this digital place possible.

So... Thank you : )

 

[Misery]

I always hate it when people say that kind of thing.

Every now and then, someone says it to me. I then will point out multiple individuals who I knew, as friends, for some 5+ years on the internet, and THEN afterwards met them in person at a convention or whatever.

....Which changed nothing at all, because the friendship was already there. Thus, proving my point.

And then I just throw something if the person continues to try to argue with me about this.


I think some people have a really hard time with the idea, partly because some may have that constant need/desire for things like eye contact and whatever, that non-verbal stuff. To me, that stuff is utterly meaningless. I dont get that stuff even when I'm standing right next to someone so.... cant say I care much. But what I can say is, if your friendship is based ENTIRELY on that idea, maybe they're not as much of a friend as you think. Of course if I say this to anyone the response is basically "HERP DERP" so I dont generally bother.

 

[Alaska]

Maybe I'm just a dork, but I can only do the face to face thing for a short time and I get exhausted.
I suck at meeting people (strangers) face to face. I always have. I get nervous my words get stuck and I just usually feel like some lame ass fool, who is dumb as a rock. It embarrasses me, and I get mad at myself, because I want so bad to be able to not be the out of place goof ball.

I was never allowed to speak my mind in the "real world", when I was younger. If I dared to do so, I was told to shut up, maybe smacked around, or told in a hundred different ways how stupid I was.

I basically went mostly silent for much of my life. I still don't say much. But on here (specifically speaking of Aspie Central) there seems to be an unspoken freedom where we can be the real us. I respect that privilege and I see it as basically a gift that I am to honor.

I'm basically a newbie... I barley even know how all this works, but instantly it sort of felt like a home I never had. We get to let stuff out and deal with stuff, and hear other peoples stories. I am ASD, on here who cares, most of us are. The people here who are not, they are here trying to understand us, and thats cool too. You are my tribe, my kind of people, for the most part we get each other in some degree. Those before us had nothing. They lived in silence... I feel honored that we don't have to do that anymore.

It doesn't matter if we are half a world apart, or 10 miles apart. It doesn't matter if your white, black, or a being from another planet. I don't see people as races, colors, genders, or anything else. I see us as a group of people who have one thing in common... We have some "thing(s)" that makes us different from what the world has labeled as "normal".

On here, I can spill my guts, or read about someone else spilling theirs. To me that is a very good bunch of friends being friends? I may be wrong, and if I am please just don't even tell me... I like it the way it is.

I love to write, the words don't get stuck as much, and you never know it when they do...

I am all about bettering my life... I speak with a counselor once a week. I have spent a lot of time and money trying to overcome as much of this as I can. Yet I cant tell him half of what I will openly write on here.

I look forward to reading what people write... Its real, sometimes its hard core, sometimes it breaks my heart, but thats what is so beautiful about it.

Out in the real world I am trying so hard to function, and not be a dork, I don't grasp a lot of what is being said. I cant express my emotions real well, and people think I don't have any sometimes... they have no clue about what we have to deal with, or what is really inside us.

On here I can soak it up, think about it, and appreciate that there are people like me.

I don't think having ASD is an easy life, but on the flip side it might be a gift. I read so many stories how so many of us were abused and misunderstood, and what they have overcome. It opened up a whole new world to me. I hope it means something to others to be able to have a place where we are for once basically free to be who we really are.

Friends to me are people who share a common interest and care about each other. It's pretty simple really and it can be that light in a dark place for someone who is struggling.

I guess what I wanted to really say is... Thank you to the people who made this digital place possible.

So... Thank you : )

Wow! You said that well, you inarticulate Aspie, you.

 

[Momo]

If they are courteous, know you well enough, have some semblance of caring and want to have a conversation with you, then that's tenthousand times better than some people you meet in the real world. A friend is a friend my friend. I don't care about the screen, besides, then you can use emojis

 

[Jet Weiss]

My only friends are online friends. People who care and support you, and will talk with you and be there for you, are your friends, regardless of where you met them.

 

[Judge]

At best I've had a checkered past of what I would firmly call "fair weather friends". Who come and go from my life for whatever reasons...or maybe even none at all.

 

[Crossbreed]

It is the modern-day iteration of the "pen pal" (without the snail-mail delay).

 

[Katleya]

Ah, MySpace and MSN... that almost makes me want to post something broody to my LiveJournal

I kind of miss MSN... But what about Yahoo 360, though? I can't have been the only one who made some friends there? (Some of whom I've even met IRL and still speak with 10 years later)

Aside from that, just because we see people in the real outside world doesn't mean they're more honest and better-intented than people behind a screen. I don't read body language and micro-expressions well enough to not be gullible IRL. Obviously we're rid of that online, but maybe because we've been instructed over the years to be careful who you talk to online, we manage to be somewhat more careful online than outside, thus ending up with quality friends. Maybe that's a difference between NTs and people on the spectrum: they are for the most part not only better at social interaction, which makes them more likely to further seek it, but they're also less likely to suffer from face-to-face interactions, whether it's because it doesn't send them in a panic attack from too much interaction, or because they don't end up bullied by people they misidentified as friends, for example.

Oddly enough, there are even several of you I could totally picture myself meeting, just not all at the same time because we're pretty intense, aren't we?

But yes, it's always smart to have a safety net outside. I just realized that even my flesh friends, I actually mostly communicate with... online. I guess there's no running away from that screen, huh?

 

[Spotty01]

Alright, now that the traffic for this thread has died down, allow me to ask another similar question.

A lot of people have said that you can have friends through the Internet, which I wholeheartedly agree with. So, what about enemies per se? I think that requires a little more explanation.

Is it even worth your time or emotion to hate someone, like a troll or a hater or maybe something more than even that, that's on the other side of your screen? We've all been there, we're on the Internet, minding our own business, then some asshole shows up to ruin our day. Some you might just shrug it off entirely, others you get livid at, and still others you outright wish death upon (they're few and far between, but I had one, several years back, who continued harassing me even after I told her that I was stressed out because I was having surgery not long afterwards, enough said).

But, at the same time, you don't really know what they're IRL, on top of the fact that they're little more than strangers on the other side of your screen, as I've said a million times before. And, for all you know, that stranger is either someone who legit bullies people for their own benefit and amusement, or someone who's either young or has very low self-esteem and just knows that other folks' misery makes them feel better. It's wrong either way. Back on topic, what I'm asking is if they're worth hating and getting stressed out over and holding a grudge against.

With every word I type, it gets more and more difficult to explain, but I hope I'm making the gist of my point clear. If you can real friends over the Internet, then is it worth having legit feelings of negativity and outright grudges towards a petty bully on the other side of your screen as well? It depends, IMO, but I don't have much of a real comment on it other than that.

Thoughts?

 

[Crossbreed]

Speaking from experience, I can hate what I consider to be a destructive ideology, but I don't see the point of calling out its individual proponents (except, perhaps, those running for public office). If I could somehow coerce one person to "see the light," great (that leaves only 3,749,999,999 to go). That effort does not seem to be worthwhile to me.

In the modern agora known as the internet, the best thing that I can do is declare my position in no uncertain terms and allow it to appeal to those who are undecided and those who have become disillusioned with an opposing point of view.

I have encountered two types of "enemies" on the 'net:

• Those who hate your ideology, as a camp, and
• Those who feel obligated to correct and/or punish everyone who would disagree with them.

 

[dragonwolf]

So, what about enemies per se? I think that requires a little more explanation.

Is it even worth your time or emotion to hate someone, like a troll or a hater or maybe something more than even that, that's on the other side of your screen?

I'm not one to hold a grudge in general. Even with people I know in real life, there are very few people that I'd say I hate. Hate and anger take too much energy for me, in part because I'm a compulsive problem solver, and hating or being angry at someone pretty much means there's a problem, so I have to force my brain to leave it alone. And hate and anger just take way too much energy in general.

So for me, it's not worth hating people on the internet. The vastness of it, the transient nature of it both allow for me to just proverbially walk away even from whole sites and not be particularly lesser for it. Unlike in real life, where if I'm around someone long enough for those emotions to start growing, I'm probably stuck with them for one reason or another and can't just leave the situation.

The beauty of the internet is that while I believe you can build lasting relationships, you don't have to, so you can walk away from toxic ones.