I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of IRL people on Facebook asking questions about my online friends (most from LJ) who are also on Facebook. The overriding view seems to be disdain in the “You must not have any RL friends” or “Why the fuck do they write so much?” Or sometimes I get, “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” Or “Why do you use such big words?”
I kid you not. These comments are coming from adults, whether they’re the tiny fraction of coworkers I’ve friended or from family. My RL friends don’t spend enough time online to get involved, LOL.
I think tech-savviness, education, and a love of writing/reading have a lot to do with it. I know to them I must move in an entirely different orbit. What I don’t like is how their declarations make me feel as though I have to justify myself. Like, why should I have to explain to RL Person how X and I know each other? Why should I have to explain to Another RL Person what Y and I are discussing? Or how one of my online friends refers to me by Kiz right on Facebook and a RL Person asks me, “Who’s Kiz?”
Have you ever encountered anything like this? How do you handle it? I rarely discuss anything happening online IRL unless I’m relating something to my tech-savvy hushand. I also keep pretty tight privacy options. Maybe it’s me but I resent having to explain my “other” life, if you will.
Why bother explaining? Except for family, ex-girlfriends, and a handful of people I’ve known since college I would be hard pressed to explain how I “met” any of my online friends.
My ex-fiancée used to ask me all the time how I knew various women on my friends list. She was convinced from the day we began dating that I’d find someone prettier, she was sure I preferred blondes, etc.
“Who’s Mandy? Who’s Darcy?” Umm… My cousins. “Well, they’re awfully pretty. I don’t look like that. How about <list>?” Coworkers. Look, nearly every friend is a family member, fellow student, or coworker.
She even did this after we broke up; she wanted to just know that she had been replaced by someone younger and prettier. “Who’s Danielle?” “My friend and coworker, I tutor her in math.” “Right.” Oddly, the two she never asked about were the two that would have confirmed her idea that I’d moved on.
Who are they? Where did you meet them? Did you think any of them were cute? Why don’t they know your other friends? What don’t you want them to know? Why are you hiding this part of your life from me? Why did you murder Mr. Frederickson?
It’s weird how an online origin for a friendship still holds - for some people - the kind of smear of unworthiness left over from early dating websites when so many people were taken advantage of by con-artists and worse. I’m not sure even dating websites hold that stain anymore, but somehow online friendships are deemed less than “real” by some.
I can honestly say that some of my on-line friends have saved my life, and are closer than my family will ever be. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
Why do people think the web doesn’t represent real life, I wonder? Are we not breathing as we type?
That sounds annoying. If I were dating someone like that I’d have trouble resisting the temptation to prove her right. I mean, if the marginal difference in her freaking ut about it were that minimal anyway …