Are internet friendships as real as offline friendships?

Alligatorob said:
Just seeing people and hearing their voices does for me anyway. Maybe its an illusion, but it feels that way.

For example I'll bet you have a delightful accent, I'd like to hear it.
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Im a cockney ( Londoner ) But that’s not gonna make you know me !!

Hope your illusion helps !
 

charry said:
A decent person , will be real online as in real life , if your wary of this , then don’t go there ..
Medusa’s zoom doesn’t make people more real @Alligatorob
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Hi, @charry, I agree with you that decent people are decent behind and in front of the screen, online or in person, decency is constant.

@Alligatorob didn't say Zoom Meetings make people more real, he said they make people feel more real to him.
 
I met my best female friend, online, in 1999. She lives in S. Australia. We had interests in common .. stained
glass art, pottery, etc. She messaged me (I forget which program it was), and we became fast-friends. I
stayed with her and her husband at their sheep farm on my first visit in 2001. She was exactly the same
in person as she was online. She and her husband were strongly supportive of me through the difficult
years I had with my Australian ex. Without them, I don't know where I'd have ended up. We keep in touch,
and know that whatever we tell one another - goes nowhere else. I feel so privileged to have such friends.
 
Ive met a few online friends over the years , face to face, some have been in group meet ups at Pubs ,Resturants for meals ,always took my Husband along , unless it was a female solo meet , on those occasions we went on days out ,Castles, Museums, City Shopping , Cinema and Theatres, all except one were same in real life .
 
My online friendships are real to me. For about 20 years I lived secluded and had only one or two friends in person. So my online connections became important to me. Some I have met in person. Many I have felt their happiness and pain over various life events and they shared in mine as well. They are the first to offer assistance or support when I have needed it.
 
Internet friendships I believe are certainly possible, although likely not as fully based and comprehensive as real life friendships. I have more internet acquaintances than friends by far, and caution is certainly indicated when exploring the waters, because scammers are out there, tend to seek out our age group, and are quite adept at gauging and meeting the emotional needs of their “marks” before manipulating and exploiting them…
 
My friendships online are different from real life in that I'm much more open online. You all know things about me and my family that even some of my closest "real life," friends don't know. That's mainly to protect the privacy of others.

I know one thing, generally speaking, people in real life like me a lot better than people online. I've been so hated on a few message boards that I've been banned by popular demand. (Politics.)

Pictures of myself online or zoom meetings are out of the question for me.
 
I completely agree with Fyre Fox. Online groups are a perfect way for people to meet for friendships and there are some that happens to. Unfortunately online is also a great way for others to take advantage of others as well or be scammed. Once they get to know you, they know what to say to you and what you want to hear.

Old people, disabled people, mentally challenged people are all vulnerable people who are perfect targets for this to happen. It’s far easier to take advantage of people behind a screen. When you join a website, your ip address is shown, your real name is often shown. On forums you share personal information, pictures, personal stories. It’s a perfect place for scammers to hang out. They might even hope from site to site.

When people join sites, they usually want a site that’s busy so there’s lots of interaction. If you wanted a site to look busy, it wouldn’t take much to make up a bunch of accounts so it looked that way and create membership of trusting, decent people. When trust is gained they can use this information to track you wherever you go, using different accounts to do it.

Scammers might even like you for a while especially if you are entering for them. Once you start sharing opinions they don’t care for , they just use another account to blast you. It actually happens.

I’ve been on these senior sites since 2018 . There are people who have stalked me from site to site. Twenty people you know online might be the same person and you don’t know what information you tell them they are going to use but guaranteed they are going to f*ck with you and not just online.

If you owned a business in the real world, you’d be able to see these scammers and see these deceptive games they play. Being online, you can’t. Administration are best off not sharing their opinions as themselves and moderators come and go whenever needed. Online socializing can be very dangerous cause there’s a network of deceptive scammers out there.

I know my post isn’t going to be popular but I don’t really care. There ARE professional scammers lurking online waiting to f*ck with you. If you think online targeting is bad, wait until they have they perfect opportunity in real life. They truly DoN’T CARE!
 
About 25 Years ago, on a web app called ICQ, I met a lovely Angela from New Hampshire U.S.A, and over the years we have kept in touch, now by Facebook and Emails, we also over that time sent by mail gifts from Australia and vice versa from the U.S. At the time of 9/11 tragedy I really wanted to be with her and family because her brother Tommy was on one of the planes from Boston that crashed into the two towers. I made a video at that time (Below) and would so dearly love to meet her personally One Day.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Once you start sharing opinions they don’t care for , they just use another account to blast you. It actually happens.
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Thanks for all that information, Peppermint! Wow.

I once made a few posts on one of the news networks YouTube sites. I noticed the post stayed at the top and was highlighted. For a while all my posts were highlighted and at the top of the comments. Then one day I had an opinion that was politically opposite from what I usually said and I was never topped or highlighted again.
 
I have made online friendships and occasionally have met the person "in the flesh." It varies. Some people are exactly what you see on the online forum. Some turn out totally different from what you expected. Years ago, on a different forum, I met a woman whom I had liked a lot, and she turned out to be incrredibly boring. One guy (this was a group of fans of a TV show) turned out to be nuts, a big drinker, and I heard later that he ended up in prison! So we can't really trust what we see here.

But I've also seen one couple meet online, fall in love, and eventually marry! So it can go either way.
 

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