Computer companions

After reading a friend’s blog yesterday I got to thinking about what is or perhaps isn’t a healthy relationship with people you have met online. I have many “friends” online, I even met Mark online, my concern is when we cross that little line between sanity and insanity. I sat awake last night going over this in my head, not that it was keeping me up . . . there really was something strange going on in this house last night but that’s a whole other blog in itself.

It’s so easy to make yourself out to be something you are not online. True lies I guess, we tend not to convey the bad points about our personalities. Well, not at the start anyway. When I first met Mark my words were not “hey I’m Pamela, a right headcase that suffers from panic attacks, depression, endrometriosis, underactive thyroid (the list goes on) and I tend to bottle up problems and get overly angry at the slightest little thing”. Instead I chose to keep it light hearted, letting him see what perhaps he wanted to see. However, as soon as I realised that there was something more to Mark and I, he knew everything and luckily for me that did not put him off. He is a very good judge of character is my Mark, and even although I didn’t lie, he was aware of my problems before I had told him. It never was an online relationship. We were two people who stumbled across each other and found common interests. It didn’t become a relationship until after we had met a few times. That to me seems semi healthy. We didn’t live in a fantasy world where everything was peachy through being shady. He met my friends, I met his. I think that one of the best ways to suss someone out, meet their friends and see how they react around them.

I have also managed to gain a few healthy friendships with female chatters too. Again like Mark, these relationships started online, but I soon met these girls and now you can’t get me off the phone to them. I think there needs to be a balance in online friendships. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps my views are all slightly skewered but I find that if it stays online it’s doomed. Like I made a male friend about 8 years ago, nice enough chap, but so full of mince it’s almost funny. He’s never met me, there is no indication that we will ever meet so this to him is a security blanket to big himself up. I know he’s lying, he knows he’s lying yet he continues the way he is. We sit each night in front of this screen, the veil, concealing the secrets of our lives, hoping that nobody gets to close and right there and then you’re destroying what hasn’t even begun. We get wrapped up in a world of msn, blocking out all that is real, and starting new relationships on dry soil. We forget that there is life beyond the screen. I know at one point I was just the same, luckily my thoughts have matured with time and I have a healthy tinternet/real life balance these days. Using my MSN for only the “special people” in my life. On there is only one person I have not met, young Benny. That’s a little different though, he is worthy enough to be on my MSN, I know he’s not one of the plebby sorts I’m speaking of :P and I will meet him at one point, have every intention of (whether you like it or not muwahahaha)

I know for a long time I found it much easier to speak to people online than my “real friends”. This was because of low self esteem, for finding some of my real friends were not very real at all. I can understand coming from a small town with not many friends makes it easier to just tap away all night looking for friendships you just can’t get in real life. There is no harm in drawing the two together, make it a true friendship. Let people see the real you, because no matter how truthful you think you are online, there is always concealment.