The in-between

The sucky thing with online friends is, after a couple of years or so, you'll cease being their friend. I'm looking at twenty people on my list right now, some of which I've met as far back as four years ago. Since then, I've only kept consistent contact with a few of them.

Let's be clear with that, though. I've deleted some people that are not in the list of twenty, when it was certain the conversations weren't going to last for more than a week. Some of the twenty, I've met personally. I just moved two named to the "friends" list, so that's a list of eighteen. Some of the eighteen are people who I knew through people I actually met - say, Daniel's connected to Ella, or Erik's connected to Valerie. Some of the remaining sixteen have firmly entrenched themselves into the psyche that you can, more or less, call them friends, although I'm not sure how Alyssa sees me.

But the thing with online friends is, after a couple of years or so, both of you will realize that it won't go anywhere, and you both decide to spend time with your real-life friends. I have, after all, deleted around five on the list, not to mention the sixteen people collectively known as the shiny happy people. But I don't really have many real-life friends to speak of. Maybe it's the discontent with where I am right now, or maybe it's the fact that all I have are connections rather and friendships, and that means I still get to see all the stuff they do, and obviously, I don't.

It's not really a mistake of mine, anchoring everything on this. It's just something I can't wrap my finger around.

And I understand that they have lives to run. Last I heard, Katia's running the same gas station I mentioned a few months back. Last I heard, Issa's working a few buildings away from me, and oddly, even if I have her phone number, I haven't invited her to lunch, thinking she will be too busy and, maybe, not want to have me around. More or less, this is me being paranoid, but again, it's something I can't wrap my finger around. How many years of conversations does it take for people to get tired of each other? Why the double standard? And why do we have to give up secrets, both sides?

One of them, I had a crush on. I taked with for the most part of two years, interrupted by commitments and, I don't know, life, perhaps. I poked fun at everything and she took it in stride. But I invited her to coffee and she flatly refused it. (That should make who I'm referring to very obvious, especially if you've been reading this religiously.) I should have seen it coming, but it still sucks realizing that she's removed you from her friends list, and you don't get to see her anywhere anymore. "You list [name of person] as a friend," the web page will say.

Unlike real ones, which take an argument to cut off everything, in the case of online friends, it takes only a click on a button. Delete friend. Block person. I do the same things, too, but of course it'll hurt if it's you on the receiving end - or maybe because she was a crush, an in-between, someone I never committed to but someone I never stopped thinking of. And I, I cannot wrap my finger around it.

And your responses...

Sure, i mean, you may think that youll never have to do anything with the long lost ones but you never know when they might actually suddenly-for-some-strange-reason say something, right?

I dont think people should be deleted, especially if youve already exchanged some sort of interaction with them, online or off. like you said, its different if youre on the recieving end, yeah?

Blogger Unknown11/19/2009     

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