The Internet and Friendship Lists.

I have always had a really hard time maintaining online friendships.  Most online friendships end after the first session.  At least that is how it has been for me, in the past so many years.  Way back I used to get some that would stay with me for a month or so and die, or maybe a year and then die.

I don't know if this is a sign of a mental illness or not.  I don't like looking at a long internet contact list.  Because it hurts me to see a long list of people who are no longer available for chatting or emailing, or commenting.  In order to have a real friendship, it needs to be something that remains in some active mode.  At least that is how I feel.  If my friendship is based on a pen pal like email system.  Then I am ok with response times that take a week or maybe two.  But I got to admit that the longer it takes the more it hurts.  The reason why it hurts me is because without the activity I soon get lonely.  I used to think if I had a huge list of people then there would always be some activity.  I learned from experience this is not the case!  I have been active on some social networking and even some forum sites, where I had hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of people on my friends lists.

I remember when I was active on a social anxiety forum, I had the largest friends list of anyone!  People literally posted in the forums that I was the most popular person on that site.  Little did they know, I sent out lots of friend requests, and almost nobody turned it down.  So my list sky rocketed there.  My hope was to turn some of those people into real friendships.  At the end of the day, I ended up leaving that site just as lonely as I was when I joined it.

In my personal experience, the internet has not been a good place for me to make and keep friendships.  what is wrong with me?  Who knows.  Maybe I'm just a bad friend.  Or maybe I'm just someone with really really really bad luck.  I'm sure if you get to talking to me, you might form your own conclusion.