For the amount of time we all spend online, we have grown to really know each other. Sometimes it seems like we (or should I say "I") have a MUCH easier time making friends online, versus real life. Infact, I really don't have many friends. I have a few people that I occasionally get together with, but that's about it. I spend more time online, talking to people that I have actually met online. What about you?

Online, definitely

online.  Before I became deaf I was never good with making friends. 

For the amount of time we all spend online, we have grown to really know each other. Sometimes it seems like we (or should I say "I") have a MUCH easier time making friends online, versus real life. Infact, I really don't have many friends. I have a few people that I occasionally get together with, but that's about it. I spend more time online, talking to people that I have actually met online. What about you?


From a 2003 thread about Marti Laney's The Introvert Advantage:

Q: How can you tell an extroverted computer geek from an introverted computer geek?
A: The introverted computer geek will look at his shoes while he talks to you. The extroverted computer geek will look at your shoes while he talks to you.

Eight years later, for the thread for Susan Cain's book on how to Quiet, Please: Unleash the Power of Introverts demonstrates that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

To answer your original question:
http://blog.codefront.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/outside_mmorpg.jpg

Are you seriously suggesting that the NPCs I encounter when I walk away from the computer are actual sentient players like me and not just NPCs with decent AI?  And the game engine entrusts them with a fully PvP environment.  No saves?  No reloads?  Who the hell would play that game, even on hardcore mode?

What takes the "normal" person about a few months to create a friendship, it takes me about a year or longer, to make that same sort of friend. It's discouraging!  >:(

more friends online.

I'd say I'm dead even... I've made some really good friends here, people I would actually hang out with regularly if we lived closer (you know who you are)  but I have good friends offline as well.

I do compartmentalize my friends so I have my old high school friends I meet up with every year. We get together for dinner and talk and laugh and have a good time. We exchange quips on facebook now and then...and then we meet up again.

I have my paley friend that I see a couple times a month. Some of them I see more than that because I love them and we took the friendship outside of the paley experience.  Every once in a while I will spend too much time with one or two of them and find myself being driven nuts...but like here...when I feel my frustration building I back off and don't re-engage until I cool down.

then I have my work friends....the ones I see only at work and the ones who have retired so we started hanging out after I get off work. Going to a dinner party tonight with my retired work friends.

I also have friends who  are between my high school years and my current work. These are friends who would be my college friends if I'd gone to college when I was supposed to. They are also old work friends because we met where we worked but the friendship grew outside of the job. 

And I have my college friends... I don't see them as often but I see them when I can.  I think, despite trying to label myself a hermit I get out more than I realized  ;D

online.
My life is...complicated. It doesn't allow for the time and dedication it generally takes to maintain friendships, and there are aspects of my life that I can't explain, or are too difficult to explain.

Many would say that means my online friendships are topical because there is no actual face to face contact; but they aren't, because online I can just be me. So for me, my online friendships are deeper than 'physical world' friendships.

If that makes sense.

For the amount of time we all spend online, we have grown to really know each other. Sometimes it seems like we (or should I say "I") have a MUCH easier time making friends online, versus real life. Infact, I really don't have many friends. I have a few people that I occasionally get together with, but that's about it. I spend more time online, talking to people that I have actually met online. What about you?


Same for me, I have made many more friends online. I have many real life friends too, not as many as I have online but still a good number of people :)

I think it might be about 50/50. I communicate more with my on-line friends than I do with my "real-life" friends. But in terms of how many-about the same.


Cat

I think it might be about 50/50. I communicate more with my on-line friends than I do with my "real-life" friends. But in terms of how many-about the same.


Cat


Same here.

I like you guys better than I like a lot of my "real life" friends though.  :)

Same here.

I like you guys better than I like a lot of my "real life" friends though.  :)



I can't say that I like you 'BETTER"-and I can't say I like you any worse either.  ;)  But, I don't always get to see my "real life" friends very often. One of my best friends and I always say that we need to get together to do lunch and we only get to see each other once a year at my Spring Fling barbeque.  :-\\  (In fact, the barbeque originally was just her & her 2 boys and Carlos & I and it grew from there.) But we do call from time to time just to catch up. I think you guys know what is going on in my life better than she does.

There are also a few couples that we have dinner with from time to time.

The person I talk to on the phone the most is my sister ("Dawg"). Of course I have to be careful what I say about her here because she does comes and reads it from time to time.  :-X  :-[ :o :o


Cat

Same here.

I like you guys better than I like a lot of my "real life" friends though.  :)


Thanks.