When people leave the Internet…

Have you ever lost contact with a friend from the Internet? Sure you have. You’ve probably experienced something like this multiple times in your life now. I know it’s happened to me many times.

The internet has been a part of my life since I was 17. I got my first 14.4 dial-up account to run Winsock 2 on a 286 running Windows 3.1 (Not to be confused with the 3.11 one, a-doo run run.)

Throughout the years, I’ve met some great people online, and we form friendships in chat rooms and by exchanging e-mail. They’re the modern day pen pals, the friendships we develop with people sight unseen, or perhaps only glimpsed through photos. Modern times offer us video chatting, and of course if my friends have a blog or a Twitter account, I will follow them  to see what they’re up to.

I actually met my husband on an Internet forum–which is now long gone–and after a nine month online courtship, I agreed to visit him and see if we could work as a real couple. Five years later, with four of legal marriage, and I’m still not regretting my choice to fly between a hurricane and a tropical depression to meet Luciano.

Our history illustrates how online relationships can be just as rich and fulfilling as “face-to-face” friendships. But on any given day, one of your friends will pull up stakes and leave the Internet. Their blogs disappear. Their forum accounts close, and every viable line of communication disappears.

When this happens, of course my first urge is to panic and check on my friend, but if I can confirm that they’re alive and kicking, and that they just decided to leave the Internet, what can I do about friendships that end so abruptly?

I’m not talking about dealing with bitterness. People usually have good reasons for going offline, but that’s still only one half of the emotional equation. How do I feel about losing a friend so quickly if the split is neither my fault or theirs?

Well, it hurts, that’s for sure. I still want to head over to their blog to read about their latest projects, or head to their art gallery to check out their new sketches. I might just want to shoot them an e-mail to gab in private. But now I can’t, and so it makes me feel lonely.

I’ve seen other people talk about how they treat the Internet as an emotional filter. That is, they don’t offer any real emotions to other people online. They can’t get emotionally attached to anyone, but they also claim to be less likely to enter into an online fight.

I’m not really sure how prevalent this attitude is, but I run into people here and there who make this claim. I don’t knock their method, but I also don’t understand them. How can I talk to someone for a few years and not invest something in them emotionally? For me, I don’t think there’s any way that I could respect the digital barrier and keep my emotions to myself.

So yes, I sometimes enter into fights. I sometimes lose, too, but that’s life. Sometimes you get to be right, but statistically speaking, you’re bound to be wrong sometimes too. I’m right roughly 78.6% of the time. Oddly enough, I was right 99.5% of the time as a teenager, but as I age, I find my accuracy slipping.

But I also develop friendships and crushes, and I cannot help but share myself with the online friends. So when those friends vanish, it’s almost as hard hitting as the death of friend. Oh sure, they’re still out there, somewhere in the ether. But their corporeal form online, the only body I know for them, is gone. They’re now dead to me. How do I move along without feeling down or hurt?

There’s not really anything I can do in such a situation except mope for a bit because my friend won’t be out to play anymore. Then I move on and try to make new friends. The alternative is flying out to my friend’s location and torching their place while screaming, “Now you know how it feels to be spurned, motherfucker! Raaaargh!”

But really, flying overseas is too expensive to consider this a viable option.

PS: If you think this post was aimed at you, it’s not. I’ve had multiple friends go offline in the last few months, so this is just a generalized ramble…not to be mistaken for a rant. Okay, I think that should clear this up and prevent any guilty feelings should former friends happen to read this post.