I’d be dead by now.
No, the people around me are mostly racists, sexists, and bigots. If it wasn’t for the internet, I wouldn’t be able to find my people without moving far away.
Midwest/deep south eh?
Well, better in what way? You can have loads of friends and still be lonely af. You can talk to some strangers at a bar and not have any real intimacy or heart-to-hearts. I don’t get it. For me, probably not. I’d probably be at some cafe or at some geeky library hiding away from people 'cause I don’t wan to deal with all that 24/7.
No, my internet friends are as real as the IRL friends I have.
1000% but I’m honestly ok with it. I think the bigger thing is not having access to therapy or psychiatry as a child/young adult was more impactful. If id have figured me out at younger age I probably wouldve met more people and made more friends.
Nope. I’m a only child who moved a lot. I don’t struggle with loneliness, I’m okay being alone.
What little tolorence I have for social interactions is 100% due to the internet. If I can’t hit the power button to make y’all go away I want nothing to do with you.
I wouldn’t think so. Because after school wraps up, sure I’ll have a few locals left but as far as expanding beyond them is concerned, I would be a hermit by now with incredible contempt for society.
No, not really. Personally, think that friendships are very shallow these days. Only a handful of people or even less can be truly called friends that would be there for you when you genuinely them.
I’ve seen countless of times where people with several friends (or a lot) are left in the dust after two people in the friendships have a conflict or they are friends “only in the fun times”. This was also before the internet took off.
My mom somehow has this friend, I’d say like a BFF or something (same gender for context) while she was in school or something, and they seem so close. As a kid, I’ve been to their house a few times and I’d didn’t have a phone (smartphones werent even a thing) so I was just bored and looked around at stuff while the adults talked.
My mom borrowed money from this friend so she’d have enough money to buy a house. That debt has now been repaid.
Like idk… that seems so rare… ironically my mom tells me “blood relationships is important” or some bullshit, but then I point this out and she just be like… speechless, cuz our actual blood relatives (like aunts/uncles) didn’t even wanna help.
But yea “these days”, maybe… maybe its just society gotten more obsessed with money and we end up with a low-trust society.
I’m old enough to have not had a ton of friends before the internet.
Same. Although, I was in school back then, which kind of forces you to talk to people. The best way to make friends is to regularly see people. It is still hard, for me it is still a pretty rigged game of who I “click” with, but without you will never find out.
Actually, I was just thinking I should get off the internet more often.
I have lots of acquaintances and people with whom I’m friendly but few real friends… And I think that’s fine. I’ve never felt the need to spend tons of time around others or have tons of friends.
The getting off the internet thing is good. Usergroups and meetups can be a great place if you need socialization.
It wouldn’t change for me. I don’t even have friends on the internet.
No.
I was alive before Internet ubiquity. I don’t lack friends because of the Internet, it’s because we were the first in our friend cohort to have kids, and people without kids don’t want to hang out with kids all the time.
Similar situation to us, but even worse, we had a fantastic group of friends in our apartment complex and then everybody moved in a short period of time (including us). Then Covid. Then having a kid. Most of our friends have kids now, and we still keep in touch, but we’re all in different states. We haven’t really found the same kid of group, kids or not, since moving away.
We’ve got friends who are about to have their second kid, and they’re going a little nuts because they want to socialize a lot more than they are, but can only hang out at like 10:30 am.
I asked them why they don’t just make friends with other parents in the area (they moved to a kid friendly neighborhood with a bunch of young families), and they kind of made a face and didn’t answer.
But like, why not? It seems like the perfect topic to bond over and you can watch the kids together, giving you plenty of time to hang out.
Can’t speak for your friends but early this year I tried to start a monthly “mom brunch”. I made a chat and invited all the mom friends I knew from work and from my toddler’s activities. I gave up after 6 months of nobody or only one or two showing up. I’ve had better success with setting up play dates (going to a playground and just sending everybody a text that they can show up if they’re free). It’s ends up being a little bit of talking and socializing and a lot of watching your kid. But I miss the old social things we used to do. Game nights. Going to dinner. Everything changes when there’s a group of kids. And yes, I knew that going in and I don’t regret anything. Sometimes it just gets lonely.
I’ll second this. When my youngest was in preschool and I worked nights I was always the one dropping him off and picking up, and after class a big group of kids would hang at the playground and the moms would talk and hang and it was so nice. When summer rolled around someone would be like “we’ll be at this pool at this time” and whoever was free would show up, but that was the only thing that worked. Kids are too chaotic and needy for caregivers to plan around them.
If my parents or brothers lived nearby it’d be different. Some of my friends have these intergenerational support networks and they can make plans and keep them (most of the time) because they have reliable childcare. Of course, they also spend more time taking care of their younger siblings and nieces and nephews, but that’s the trade-off. I’d take it in a heartbeat.
No.
But it would still help.
(due to social media bubbling)
I have a social life because of the internet. That’s where most of my friends are, too.
