GameBanshee Forums

Alright come on now, time to face the music. In todays day and age of computers and people sitting at home instead of going out and doing some exercise, how many of you guys know your internet buddies better than your friends in real life? Would you rather have your net buddy live down the street instead of that old bat with the shot gun?

And all you males, i rather not here comments like Viv moving down the street would be a dream come true yadda yadda yadda. Flirt on your own time

I have a few net friends who i know really well. 2 are based in the UK and another in Saudi. I havent met any of them yet. 1 of them is someone i grew up with and he is now based in the UK. I actually meet him through an internet site and when we got on a first name basis it was surprising. I have a total of 4 net friends who i consider really close. I know them inside out and the same in return for me. They are at par with my real life friends, even if i havent met 3 of them.

It depends on where we live. I've actually lived in honest-to-goodness neighborhood communities where there *was* a sense of community, and we often went outside around sunset to gather and talk on one another's lawns. We partied together, we came to one another with our problems. When I locked myself out of our house, once, a neighbor called her cousin who came running with his locksmith set, and charged me nothing. But we sat around my neighbor's table eating fresh chocolate chip cookies.

But at the moment we live in a bedroom community in the South Jersey suburban sprawl near Philly, and the people around here think of two things, only: lawn development, and sports. We're not into the second, and our work on the first involves getting somebody to trim the lawn. They really, truly, dislike us, and have let us know that in the most obvious, sneering, New Jersey fashion. Sure, I have more friends up here on the Web than in my community--but it's not for lack of trying. It's a difference of interests and an unwillingness on the part of our current community to admit that non-threatening unconformity can be a acceptable thing.

I'm not sure who I really know more, my internet friends, or my real life friends. I would like to think I have a pretty good grasp on what people are like here, at GB, and other places I talk with people. My RL friends, though, are a very odd assortment of people, and sometimes it seems as if I don't know them at all. One imparticular, who tends to over-analyze everything, which causes everyone around him to become really frustrated. I think, though, I suffer from the same thing Fable does, and that is for the longest time, I lived in a bedroom community for Toronto, and had little to no interest in what the people living near me did.

I have no netfriends I know better than my RL friends, I haven't had any netfriends long enough to know them really close. I have several RL friends who I have known +15 years, people I have shared flats and boyfriends and underwear with....people who know everything about me, and I know everything about them. Then I have other close friends who I haven't known for as many years, but who are still very close...people I've met through my education, job, travelling or friends's friends. I am a social and extrovert person and I've always liked meeting new people, so the close friends I have are a people selected from hundereds and hundreds of people I've socialised with over the years. That makes it very difficult to compare them to netfriends, of which I have known none more than about 1.5 year.

Forming relationships over internet, is a slower process that RL friendships IMO, since you miss out so much information all the time. Face expressions, body "language", voice and tonality etc - it all adds to communicating with and knowing a person. This said, I absolutely do think net friendships can be equally close and valuable as RL friendships, they are slower to develop and more difficult to maintain. At least for me.

I know my RL friends better then I know my net friends, but thats not to say that I haven't developed close friendships with a few of the guys on this board. However to seal a friendship IMO you really have to meet the person, hence I would place Odie and Georgi into my group of friends. However they wouldn't be on par with my closer friends who I have grown up with and shared many exciting and also scary experiences with. As CE stated, a year of contact pales in comparision to almost a lifetime shared with some of my RL friends.

As for having net friends live closer by, probably not. I get distracted enough from people popping in all the time.

I guess i know my rl friends best, and enjoy being with them more than my internet friends. Not physically being with someone tends to make them seem less real.
But my absolute very best friends are my imaginary ones. I've had some pretty entertaining and enlightening conversations with them.

Originally posted by mental_nomad
I would be glad to answer this question but I have no freinds. Not even sure what one is.

Your my friend.

*Raise you hand if you hate urban sprawl*


I used to live in a town of four hundred people, before that a town of four thousand, ones a ten hour drive north, the others fifteen

One third of my friends live in one of those places, and the rest live in england and spain (Including parts of my family)

Im living in a city of 4 million.. maybe not big by U.S standards but big enough for me, and its breaking my balls, I despise it and every in it (Including myself, for being here)

And I have 14 months left before I can move back- but anyway. the point of this post is that,

my Rl friends have become my net friends, and yes! I do wish they lived closer

But given the lvl of contact I can keep up.. Id say that yes, you could be as close to a net friend as you could to an Rl friend

The problem is..

Too many people use the net as a spring board to launch a kind of 'second self' alot of them are lying, and so you will never have the chance to meet them... And how can you get to know somone who doesnt exist?

Maybe theres a phycology involved... I dont care

(I will miss my cable modem though... but then again, since Ill be able to go outside without sucking down two packs worth of car fumes, maybe I wont)

Oh wll, as I hav no intrnt frinds, I should considr gtting a job as th nw intrnt playmat for hir!

Well if the question is 'Who do I know better', then obviously my friends from 'real life'...Although I only have one friend who I have known more than five years (and I have been with him since I was born, so I guess that's 15 ), I like the friendships that I have, thankyou...

However, if the question is 'Who would I rather live down my street' then I have to say the SYMers...I don't belong to any other forums, other than academic kind of ones (no sociable forums), and I am always struck by the amazing charisma and friendliness of the people here. I like the people on my street, but I have no very deep community, and would gladly leave them all (apart from the guy with 14 tiny dogs all exactly identical ) to have Mr. Sleep, Fable, Dottie, Robnark and everyone come and live down my road (and no Fas, that is not an invitation for you to come and sleep in my bath... ). I think everyone must agree that it would be very funny .

So my 'real life' friends are better friends to me than my online friends, but nonetheless I would like SYM to live down my street.

I've had the odd experience of turning RL friends into OL friends. Most of the people I grew up with have now moved to other parts of the world, so the only way I can stay in touch with them is through email, chat programs and the occasional net games. They're still very close to me though (well when you know someone well enough to all get drunk and paint parts of them green that happens. ). I'd happily consider some people I've met here as friends, but unfortunately I'm not likely to meet any of them (being so far away from everything has it's disadvantages), and I now see very little difference between the two types.

Originally posted by Tamerlane
I know my RL friends better then I know my net friends, but thats not to say that I haven't developed close friendships with a few of the guys on this board. However to seal a friendship IMO you really have to meet the person, hence I would place Odie and Georgi into my group of friends. However they wouldn't be on par with my closer friends who I have grown up with and shared many exciting and also scary experiences with. As CE stated, a year of contact pales in comparision to almost a lifetime shared with some of my RL friends.

As for having net friends live closer by, probably not. I get distracted enough from people popping in all the time.

Same as with me, more or less, though I think it would be cool to have a street full of SYMers, and just pop round wherever something was happening whenever you felt like it.

@Tam-You have to see my railway carriage soon.

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Same as with me, more or less, though I think it would be cool to have a street full of SYMers, and just pop round wherever something was happening whenever you felt like it.

@Tam-You have to see my railway carriage soon.

I know, Georgi beat me to seeing it damnit!

Maybe next weekend I'll try and get the both of you around. We could have a 3-person Neon Genesis Evangelion screening...

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Neon Genesis Evangelion

Don't you find the incessant screaming gets on your nerves?

I think it would be cool to have a street full of Symer's of course it would mean if any of you caused any trouble i could come round your house and give you a good clobbering (or spanking if your female ) Just imagine the little network HLD would have set up though

Originally posted by Mr Sleep


Don't you find the incessant screaming gets on your nerves?

But in the best episodes the screaming is kept to a minimum, thankfully.
Besides, Tam hasn't seen it yet, and he has seen Ghost in the Shell. BTW, they do have Legend of the Overfiend here in WA, I saw the DVD only the other day.

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
But in the best episodes the screaming is kept to a minimum, thankfully.
Besides, Tam hasn't seen it yet, and he has seen Ghost in the Shell. BTW, they do have Legend of the Overfiend here in WA, I saw the DVD only the other day.

I have only seen a little bit but the constant screaming just gets on my nerves so i now just avoid it

Legend of the Overfiend, sounds interesting is it as bad as return?

Originally posted by Mr Sleep


I have only seen a little bit but the constant screaming just gets on my nerves so i now just avoid it

Legend of the Overfiend, sounds interesting is it as bad as return?

It's worth seeing, once you can get over the screaming. Quite intense IMO.

I don't know, I'm going to hire it one day and I'll give a report in the anime thread once I have.

back on topic boys




I think for me rl friends and online friends tend to intersect. I talk about online events, funny little stories, personalities to my friends and vice versa... I've introduced several friends to online people as well, whether just ICQ or handing them the phone and saying 'Here, would you like to talk to so-and-so from so-and-so'. *shrugs*

I tend to find that I 'talk' to online people much more than rl people. It all goes back to the fact that I'm horrible about returning disourse... emails, pms, calling a friend back, planning events etc... So, being that I happen to stumble by a site everyday, I manage to keep in touch with online people a bit more easily.

But, online friends are fleeting.

They can disappear, they can lie about themselves, or you just can't think of anything more to discuss so they fade from your worldview. I always fight against this, but it always happens...

Viv