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[Tack]

It's quite a short story:

I always played a certain online game (League of Legends, for those who don't vilify it) with a friend I met on the game. We got along really well, he got my sense of humor, I got his cynicism. It was pretty good, and we had some real laughs over Skype while we played.
Anyway, the Season 2 championships were coming up, so everyone was rushing to gain ranks. Everyone got a bit more competitive, and on edge. Now, while we were more tense, and doing more ranked games, I don't really know any times where we ever had any friction, except for one in which I was bitching to him that if he played with people other than me all the time, he'd soon be way past my skill level.

Regardless, one day I find that he, along with the other friend of his I played with, had removed me as a contact from the game. My initial thought was 'Oh crap, I've done something terrible- Why won't he talk to me!' - the typical thoughts one has about a sudden ex-friend. I tried vainly to contact him, and his friend, but I basically got stonewalled. Calling his friend on Skype simply caused the call to be redirected to him- and then rung out.
My second thought was 'Hold on, I barely know this guy. He's some random from America, why should I care?'. And so I tried to stop worrying about it. I just kept doing my thing, just a fair bit more aggressively because of my pent-up self-doubt.
Leading to my third thought: 'What was so wrong with me that he felt the need to ignore me'.

And that's where I'm currently at. I can't even play the game anymore because when I log on there's barely anyone I play often with there, and I just get to remembering how he suddenly cut contact with me.


Obviously there's no way to fix the situation with him- other than through friends of friends, or stalking him- both of which I'm not really up for.
So the question more is: How am I supposed to deal with this? I'm a fairly 'Life's a bitch get over it' kind of person usually, but when it comes to other people's opinions of me, I have an incredible tender spot. And I really want to be able to continue playing LoL without constantly getting the bottom of my chest drop out like someone would for a good friend who no longer liked your company.
Am I putting too much store in internet friends?

[ChairmanPoo]

People get angry over stupid shit all the time. It's annoying, but you'll get over it.

[Shadowgandor]

Am I putting too much store in internet friends?

Yes. Definitely. When I was 16, I used to play a game called Tremulous. I was becoming quite good at this game and soon joined a clan with a lot of friendly people. Some of them were even becoming friends to me until at some point, clan drama started happening and one of the ''friends'' just went into full meltdown and started insulting me in every single possible way, because I didn't blindly agree with his arguments. That's when I realized that you don't know these people. You don't know who they are, what they are or anything. Even shit happening in their own personal lives could have a direct effect on how they treat you without you being able to sense a cause for this.

To this day, I never ever see someone I don't personally know as a friend because you simply don't know who they are and that's actually a really relaxing way to hang out with people on the internet

[ChairmanPoo]

I disagree. Some of my longest-standing acquitances come from the internets.

[GlyphGryph]

And I've had this happen with people I've met in real life and spent a lot of time hanging out with in person.

It's definitely not just an internet thing.

[Starver]

Like the real world, you'll probably find friendships that are eternal, ones that are on-again-off-again, perhaps with a love/hate oscillation, people who are shallow (or consider you shallow, after a while) with whom you can have bright friendships that burn out quickly, etc, etc...

The different is scope.  The Internet is massive.  You have a few billion people you might want to be friends with (possibly your soul-mate is out there somewhere, etc, etc) but the chances of any particular potential friendship being realised is small, and if there's a falling out its easy (assuming that neither party deliberately stalks the other for the duration, or you are actually both interested in exactly the same things and aren't willing to move away from your shared haunts) to lose contact entirely, just by not being in the same place as you were before (or, if you were, being there under another name).

There are some people I really knew that I lost contact with not through choice (mine or theirs) in various online communities from a decade ago that I occasionally have looked in on and they're still there, but I think it would be creepy for me to arrive back again.  But that's my insecurity speaking.

Anyway, compared with the people you go to school with (assuming we're talking about that kind of age), love 'em or hate 'em, whatever happens you know they're there if he stops being a jerk, or she stops cold shouldering you or they admit that you were right after all, and oh, you're so cool now, and they want to keep in with you again (yada yada yada).  Also, ExFriend can't easily go missing from a shared class at the same time as NewGuy joins the class, looking so similar, and having the same sort of things to say...


But on a moment-to-moment time-scale, there's not much difference between RL and Internet friends, and you'll have the same spats.  It's just probably that the Global Village has got so many people wandering in and out of it than your average actual village (or town, or even city, although the human mind can't deal with units much larger than a neighbourhood, anyway, even if some of those contacts are from a longer distance away).  Friendships that survive this tumult can thrive (I have known a number of on-line->personal->physical->children relationship transitions...).

So what am I saying?  Well, in many ways Internet Friends can be the same as Real Life Friends.  But more dynamically so, and bonds that aren't as solid can break perhaps a little easier (without one or other of the pair having to physically move towns, for extreme circumstances), and perhaps you need to remember that.  But, on the other hand, you may well get to meet more people who potentially mesh with you than IRL, and so perhaps you'll get some better 'meshers' than without this wondrous thing that is The Internet.


Have I solved your problem?  Have I answered your questions?  I don't actually think so, but all the above is true.  (FCVO 'True'.  YMMV, HTH, HAND.)


(Oh yeah, as to the game: if it's not the same game without the people to play it with, then the game probably isn't worth it.  But who knows which new players are just around the corner. The emotions about 'being cut off' may be affecting you, but I've heard the same sort of thing about not being able to go to the same coffee bar or borrow books from the same library for much the same reasons, and that's without complications actually seeing the old friend pointedly ignore you and go to a different table/set of shelves.  On the whole these things tend to resolve themselves, whether matters of the heart, mind, ego or whatever.  "Time is a great healer", and all that, even if it's just scarring over a wound rather than actually re-uniting lost limbs.  Perhaps not always, but I think there's a good chance.  Stick at it and get yourself into a new 'gang', (or go and find yourself a new set of friends...)  Look, I'm rambling again, and of course still YMMV, etc...)


Edit: Erm, yeah, what GlyphGryph just ninjaed, in far less words.

[EuchreJack]

You have no reason to feel bad.  Generally, the blame in these situations belongs to the other person.  And they don't have a bad opinion of you.  Social anxiety is quite prevailent.

There are a lot of people that will cut off contact with those they feel are getting too close, too fast.  It's happened to me many times.

As soon as they cut off contact, don't try to pursue.  It'll only make things worse.  Instead, just go along your life as you did before.  There is nothing you can accomplish by trying to contact the person.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Internet friends aren't "fake friends", if that's what you're thinking. Even if you've never met someone in person you can be your closest friend. And even people you've met in person can put different stock into a friendship than you do, which is what happened here.

[Caz]

Get new friends who don't delete you over stupid bullshit.

[Zrk2]

I find that the internet inhibits the development of friendship because you miss out on a lot of non-verbal communication, but oyu can still develop what are, for lack of a better word, long-term acquaintances, so while this sucks I wouldn't worry too much about it. That he won't even talk to you is likely a sign of his immaturity and thus probably means that he wasn't actually a very good person to be hanging out with anyway.

[Tack]

I find it humorous that a few people who've posted on here I'd consider 'internet friends', or at least acquaintances- and B12 is full of them.

But on a game somehow it has a different feel to it. Sure, with this forum I've had times when I've completely pissed someone off- so I've left the forum for a time, something you can't do in real life. But when it's a game I feel like it shouldn't mean as much.

[ISP]

Internet friends are just like RL friends, only real difference is the fact you've never actually met.

People often cut contact with their friends for no real reason, it just happens.

[Leatra]

Internet friends... That's a strange thing. Being friends with someone over the internet is not like RL friendship. If you think it is, then you don't know what a real friendship means.

I have like only one person who I would call "best friend for life". We only meet at Summer vacations. I only see him 3 months for each year (and a couple of weeks or so if I get the chance to go there). So you might think "How can you guys be best friends for life if you don't seem him for 8-9 months each year?" Well, I met him first when I was 6 years old so it's been a long time. Also, we helped each other a lot and went through a lot. To give examples, I saved his ass from being the food of 6 dogs once. He carried me back to my house when I passed out (long story). I helped him a lot with girlfriend stuff. We got drunk together a lot. We had a lot of fights too but I guess that made our friendship stronger. He knows some of my dark side and I know some of his dark side.

With internet friendship... You don't get to live any of that. I made this observation: half the people are either a dick or very kind in the internet but they are actually not like that. When you type (or speak to the mic) "I would do anything for you buddy." you don't actually mean it. You might think you do but that's only because you are sitting on your comfortable chair and talking to them without actually feeling them near you. In RL friendships, you go through stuff that actually tests your friendship. A real friendship isn't easy to build. You can meet someone on the internet and then meet with them in RL. That actually can be a good way to make friends. I even had a girlfriend who I met with on the internet.

You see, I had this friend-ignoring-you thing too. I had a friend back in high school. We didn't see each other much in any other place than high school but we got along well. One time, we travelled together to somewhere. Trip and the time we stayed there took 2 days. After these 2 days we became total strangers. He started ignoring me because of a small issue in the trip. When the English exam was coming up he was like "hey... dude. You can help me during the exam right?" I told him "Well, when you ignored me I asked you why and you didn't respond. Now you ask me to help you cheat during an exam? Not gonna happen."

That's the last time I talked to him. I thought I knew him. I thought he was a real friend but when we spent that 2 days together, I knew what I needed to know about him.

Does that mean internet friendships are a no-no? Of course not. There are people who I talk only on the net but I know that actually I don't know much about them. Just try not to overthink and depend much on internet friendships. The people who say they really like you as a friend, might be the people who would leave you behind in a zombie apocalypse

TL;DR: Real friendships are built through hardships. If you have a friend who never endured hardships with you, helped you, or if the friendship isn't tested in some way; don't assume that he is going to be there for you everytime and don't overreact if he doesn't. This goes for all friendships, internet or not. People listen to each other's problems and give advices all the time. There are jobs that makes you listen to strangers' problems for money. It's not what you say to them, it's what you do for them.

I know all of this is gonna spark some debate and negative thoughts about me but that's just my personal opinion. Maybe I'm just paranoid or something. I just assume nobody gives a fuck about me unless I see them in action. I build my opinions on real things not just words.

BTW, I had an internet friend who disappeared without saying anything once. We played a lot of online games together for a year

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

@Leatra
No.
Just no.
Friends are friends and whether they are over the internet or not doesn't matter. The difference as a few people have put in is scale and ease of escape. Maybe you don't mean it when you say over the internet that you would do anything but when I do I mean it just as much as I mean it in person. I don't like it when people try to get out of being serious on the internet by making excuses about it not being the "real" thing because of all the examples people have given are possible in both situations. Its harder in RL to just leave but you can do it, its easier to help someone in RL but I have seen amazing things done over the web, and honestly I have more people I consider friends here at Bay12 then RL and I probably know them better than all but one or two people RL.
   The argument about how real any kind of relationship is over the internet is just a question of how willing you are to take it seriously. I have had arguments in RL about this kind of thing and I made the comparison to a town. Bay12 is the town I live in and my name that I go by here is what I go by everywhere else. Now people can come here easily and use whatever name they want as long as money or such isn't involved just like in real life. Because I always go by the same name and people recognize me I have to follow basic rules of etiquette if I want to have a good name here and I do. Those people who just come in though can act like dicks and get away with it then go back to wherever they come from and use their real name and thus not suffer any problems. Its just like in a real life town except faces and such make changing your name town to town harder. If I make a friend here and they hang out here I won't be able to disappear for long because this is where I live. I may go away for a bit but I have put to much time and effort into my little place in this community to give it up. Stories of people losing friends from school after they graduate are just like stories of people losing friends from some internet community, its just easier on the web though it might not always be so. As more things happen over the internet the more you will invest into your online persona and the harder it will be for people to just go around lying about who they are because an empty persona is no persona at all.

[Leatra]

Well, I wish I had your optimism about internet relationships.

It's Leatra by the way.