Yesterday, 03:49 PM
Hello, visitor!
Article:
Why I prefer to make friends online than in person. Online friendships have been second nature to me from an early age. Growing up in a rural area, I found the internet to be a gateway to connect with people who had similar interests to me, that I wouldn’t find through peers at school.
Click here for to make friends online
I made my first online friend on Tumblr, as we united over our shared interest in electronic music. While I came from a family who prided themselves on classic rock, friends at school typically stuck to whatever was on the charts. To find someone who also dug through SoundCloud to discover fresh releases was exciting to me and we would spend weeks tapping away before eventually exchanging numbers, meeting in real life and beginning our friendship, which spanned almost eight years. Forming online friendships came with an ease that I didn’t experience in school. Outside of my small circle, I was an introvert during those years but my online friendship with this particular friend soon became more prevalent in my life than any other. We would text, call each other constantly, and lean on each other as best friends. Five years in, when I was 21, we started dating and I moved to be with him in Birmingham where I still live. Having such a defining experience through puberty shaped my view of the world. While some people may find it intimidating to establish intimate connections with someone through a screen, it hasn’t fazed me since. I know that if the only connection an online friend has to my life is through my phone, I feel safer to open up about issues and insecurities (Picture: James Hawks) Despite this, I do have two good friends I met in real life – one an old flatmate, and another who I spent lockdown with. As a result of our living situations, this accelerated the growth of our friendships and cemented our foundations. I think if it wasn’t for being in such close quarters, it would have taken me much longer to feel so comfortable with physical friendships as online connections just seem so much easier to me. I met my current (and will-be-lifelong) best friend – the one who is there for me night and day, no matter how grand or marginal the issue – through Twitter. It began as a professional affair, with me vying for experience at the publication he worked for via DMs, and over three years our relationship has blossomed into brotherhood – shaped through men, bad decisions and endless chats over social media and FaceTime calls. We send over drafts of each other’s work, gossip about who we date, and we rely on each other as cornerstones of trust in our hardest moments. Whenever we talk, I’m transported to a place that allows us to spill our every thought, worry and dream to each other – a safe space that is erased as soon as we hang up the phone, as I am reminded that I’m in my own company and the person is far away. I think if we met offline, this safe space would actually be harder to achieve. It’s the idea that the person is disconnected from my reality and exists independentally of my daily routine that allows for this intimacy.
Article:
Why I prefer to make friends online than in person. Online friendships have been second nature to me from an early age. Growing up in a rural area, I found the internet to be a gateway to connect with people who had similar interests to me, that I wouldn’t find through peers at school.
Click here for to make friends online
I made my first online friend on Tumblr, as we united over our shared interest in electronic music. While I came from a family who prided themselves on classic rock, friends at school typically stuck to whatever was on the charts. To find someone who also dug through SoundCloud to discover fresh releases was exciting to me and we would spend weeks tapping away before eventually exchanging numbers, meeting in real life and beginning our friendship, which spanned almost eight years. Forming online friendships came with an ease that I didn’t experience in school. Outside of my small circle, I was an introvert during those years but my online friendship with this particular friend soon became more prevalent in my life than any other. We would text, call each other constantly, and lean on each other as best friends. Five years in, when I was 21, we started dating and I moved to be with him in Birmingham where I still live. Having such a defining experience through puberty shaped my view of the world. While some people may find it intimidating to establish intimate connections with someone through a screen, it hasn’t fazed me since. I know that if the only connection an online friend has to my life is through my phone, I feel safer to open up about issues and insecurities (Picture: James Hawks) Despite this, I do have two good friends I met in real life – one an old flatmate, and another who I spent lockdown with. As a result of our living situations, this accelerated the growth of our friendships and cemented our foundations. I think if it wasn’t for being in such close quarters, it would have taken me much longer to feel so comfortable with physical friendships as online connections just seem so much easier to me. I met my current (and will-be-lifelong) best friend – the one who is there for me night and day, no matter how grand or marginal the issue – through Twitter. It began as a professional affair, with me vying for experience at the publication he worked for via DMs, and over three years our relationship has blossomed into brotherhood – shaped through men, bad decisions and endless chats over social media and FaceTime calls. We send over drafts of each other’s work, gossip about who we date, and we rely on each other as cornerstones of trust in our hardest moments. Whenever we talk, I’m transported to a place that allows us to spill our every thought, worry and dream to each other – a safe space that is erased as soon as we hang up the phone, as I am reminded that I’m in my own company and the person is far away. I think if we met offline, this safe space would actually be harder to achieve. It’s the idea that the person is disconnected from my reality and exists independentally of my daily routine that allows for this intimacy.