Have you made any online friendships which you’ve met in real life

csno01

Hey guys,

Here is an interesting one: have you ever met any of your online friends in Real life? I found this post on my BBC local radio Facebook group just just thought I would ask out of interest.

I have formed online friendships on other platforms in the past, such as Yahoo Chat, but have never met them. 

I guess online networking and friendship building is part of  the new normal now. 

CSno01

L_Volunteer

Hey all, 

I am afraid to be that boring person but I want to remind you all to keep yourselves safe if you are meeting people offline that you met online. As @Teddybear12 said, sometimes people are not the same offline as they are online. However, I understand this could happen because people often meet people online now! (especially with COVID-19) and sometimes it allows us to talk to people we otherwise would not have had the opportunity to 

MarkM88

I built a friendship with someone through a gaming community in my teens. We did meet, but it wasn’t arranged as a one on one meet. We both discovered we were attending the same open day for a university and would be there at the same time, so much safer this way and it went from there. 

L_Volunteer

Hi @MarkM88

Absolutely, there are safer ways - such as meeting in groups of people and in public places! 

csno01

Teddybear12 said:

Hi @csno01 I have met one person and I have to say it was a big disappointment. You get an idea in your head what the person is going to be like and then when they are not disappointment. We had nothing to say to each other, on line we chatted away. Perhaps expectation was to high.

Hi @Teddybear12, I am sorry to hear of your experience. You are right in what you say, it can go either way.MarkM88 said:

I built a friendship with someone through a gaming community in my teens. We did meet, but it wasn’t arranged as a one on one meet. We both discovered we were attending the same open day for a university and would be there at the same time, so much safer this way and it went from there. 

Hi @MarkM88, How interesting. What course did you study?

janer1967

I have met a few online friends in person some as just friends others off dating sites 

Totally agree make sure you are safe I would only meet if I had been on a video call first so they could show they were the person in their profile 

Always meet in public place , make sure somebody knows where you are 

If you can arrange to meet in a group I used to get my friend to take me to the meeting place and they stayed in the venue so they were there to make sure I was OK 

66Mustang

I have never met anyone from online in real life, partly because I’d probably end up being the disappointing person that @Teddybear12 mentioned I am happy to type away online but in real life I struggle to know what to say and am really awkward.

66Mustang

@Teddybear12 oh, I understand, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the tip as well, I would have to agree with what you say. A few people have said I’m a good conversationalist even though I don’t think I am. I mostly listen, I don’t say much, maybe people say I’m good because they like feeling listened to? Like you say not what I say but how they come away feeling.

OverlyAnxious

I must have met 25+ people from forums and Facebook groups between 2010-2016. 

All within a small radius as I never could travel far.  I do tell people in advance that I have 'health issues' (don't go into detail) and am different in real life.  A few have been really accomodating as well.  Sad as it sounds, some of the best days I had in the last decade were spent with internet friends where I barely said a word at all and felt really unwell all day...

Sadly all drifted apart now as my conditions worsened and their lives got busier etc.  Wish I could meet new people very locally now but that would have to start through the internet one way or another.

Ross_Alumni

I haven't done this personally, but my partner's best friend is somebody she met online, and they live in Europe. They've met a couple of times, and have been friends for many years now.

csno01

janer1967 said:

I have met a few online friends in person some as just friends others off dating sites 

Totally agree make sure you are safe I would only meet if I had been on a video call first so they could show they were the person in their profile 

Always meet in public place , make sure somebody knows where you are 

If you can arrange to meet in a group I used to get my friend to take me to the meeting place and they stayed in the venue so they were there to make sure I was OK 

A video call prior to 1st meeting person sounds like a good move. 

csno01

OverlyAnxious said:

I must have met 25+ people from forums and Facebook groups between 2010-2016. 

All within a small radius as I never could travel far.  I do tell people in advance that I have 'health issues' (don't go into detail) and am different in real life.  A few have been really accomodating as well.  Sad as it sounds, some of the best days I had in the last decade were spent with internet friends where I barely said a word at all and felt really unwell all day...

Sadly all drifted apart now as my conditions worsened and their lives got busier etc.  Wish I could meet new people very locally now but that would have to start through the internet one way or another.

That is good to hear that you managed to at least meet people locally @OverlyAnxious. I can relate that conversing is sometimes difficult.


csno01

csno01

Ross_Scope said:

I haven't done this personally, but my partner's best friend is somebody she met online, and they live in Europe. They've met a couple of times, and have been friends for many years now.

That is good @Ross_Scope. 

Can’t remember if I mentioned this but I to made a couple of strong friendships with people I met on Yahoo chat back in the early 2000. They were good times. 

CoffeeFirst

No, never happened to me but I have to agree as I think it is all part of the new norm. 

I’d certainly not rule it out, as going for a ‘coffee first’ is always welcome (no pun intended) 😀

Dragonslayer

I have met a couple of people I met first on-line. They were all exactly like I thought they would be.
The last women I met on-line was an American. I ended up marrying her less than a year later. We have been married now for 22yrs. Our anniversary is on the 14th February. Yes Valentines day. 😍
  

Autumn_Feeling

I used to be a member of a fan forum eighteen years ago and regularly contributed fan art and stories there.

I talked to a lot of people on that site almost every day. Whether it was in a chat room or on the main boards. Although I never made any lasting friendships there.

I still don’t know if people were jealous, insecure, or thought that I was fake. (Or if they were fake.) I tried to keep in touch with a couple of people on social media. They never took me off their friend list and they never reciprocated which was odd. 

Looking back, I can see that it was a really toxic environment. It was a very close knit community too and there were a few cliques.

I met one guy from the forum. Quentin Tarantino was in town for a book signing and we decided to meet up afterwards. I got the impression that he just wanted to be rude/arrogant to make himself feel better. He was different in real life.

Three years ago, another person from the same forum reached out to me on social media.

There was no ‘how are you’ or ‘it’s been a while.’ I hadn’t heard from the guy in roughly eight years. 

Instead, I said that I remembered him but it had been a while.

His response? He asked me to prove that I was who he thought I was.

I replied and he seemed pretty relieved that he’d found the right person. (He wasn’t sure about my real name or my username.) Although, it was strange that he never tried to catch up/make conversation first. 

He pretty much echoed my sentiments about getting to know each other again. Then, he invited me into a private group of people who used to visit the old forum. We mostly talked there. At that point, I noticed that he’d been asking other members about me before he reached out. 

So… I set a healthy boundary, got on with my life, and waited for him to make a real effort. It wasn’t my place to make the first move.

After three weeks, I realised that he was having an operation according to his status updates.

Overall, he didn’t want to commit to a real friendship and pretty much self sabotaged the process. He acted childish and constantly fished for sympathy and compliments from friends and family. There was no real effort to build a lasting friendship.

A year later, I visited his social media to see if he'd changed.

He hadn’t. 

On the anniversary of the operation, he openly admitted in a public post that he needed a tool to help him through that process.

Looking back, I was that tool. We’d supported each other in the past. At least, I’d genuinely supported him. He probably thought that I could be his personal cheerleader again. He wasn’t serious about friendship.

Thankfully, I never met that guy in real life. He seemed to have it all: wife, kids, own home etc. Although he still didn’t seem happy which is sad.

csno01

Autumn_Feeling said:

I used to be a member of a fan forum eighteen years ago and regularly contributed fan art and stories there.

I talked to a lot of people on that site almost every day. Whether it was in a chat room or on the main boards. Although I never made any lasting friendships there.

I still don’t know if people were jealous, insecure, or thought that I was fake. (Or if they were fake.) I tried to keep in touch with a couple of people on social media. They never took me off their friend list and they never reciprocated which was odd. 

Looking back, I can see that it was a really toxic environment. It was a very close knit community too and there were a few cliques.

I met one guy from the forum. Quentin Tarantino was in town for a book signing and we decided to meet up afterwards. I got the impression that he just wanted to be rude/arrogant to make himself feel better. He was different in real life.

Three years ago, another person from the same forum reached out to me on social media.

There was no ‘how are you’ or ‘it’s been a while.’ I hadn’t heard from the guy in roughly eight years. 

Instead, I said that I remembered him but it had been a while.

His response? He asked me to prove that I was who he thought I was.

I replied and he seemed pretty relieved that he’d found the right person. (He wasn’t sure about my real name or my username.) Although, it was strange that he never tried to catch up/make conversation first. 

He pretty much echoed my sentiments about getting to know each other again. Then, he invited me into a private group of people who used to visit the old forum. We mostly talked there. At that point, I noticed that he’d been asking other members about me before he reached out. 

So… I set a healthy boundary, got on with my life, and waited for him to make a real effort. It wasn’t my place to make the first move.

After three weeks, I realised that he was having an operation according to his status updates.

Overall, he didn’t want to commit to a real friendship and pretty much self sabotaged the process. He acted childish and constantly fished for sympathy and compliments from friends and family. There was no real effort to build a lasting friendship.

A year later, I visited his social media to see if he'd changed.

He hadn’t. 

On the anniversary of the operation, he openly admitted in a public post that he needed a tool to help him through that process.

Looking back, I was that tool. We’d supported each other in the past. At least, I’d genuinely supported him. He probably thought that I could be his personal cheerleader again. He wasn’t serious about friendship.

Thankfully, I never met that guy in real life. He seemed to have it all: wife, kids, own home etc. Although he still didn’t seem happy which is sad.

@autunm_feeling

Wow what a story.. Thank you for sharing. 

66Mustang

@Autumn_Feeling I think you just summed up massive swathes of social media, definitely not a unique problem there

I’m very picky about what online communities I choose to contribute to these days as well

Autumn_Feeling

66Mustang said:

@Autumn_Feeling I think you just summed up massive swathes of social media, definitely not a unique problem there

I’m very picky about what online communities I choose to contribute to these days as well

Same here. I’m cautious about using certain platforms or forums. There are good people out there but the toxic vocal minority spoil it for everyone.

I stopped using Instagram because it felt like a competition for likes and follows. Mostly, people who weren’t following my page liked my stuff and the people who were largely ignored it.

The reverse happens to me a lot. I’ve met people in real life at gigs and events over a four or five year period and they never kept in touch online. It was a one sided relationship which was frustrating.

I don’t know why people act like that. We should raise each other up.

csno01

Autumn_Feeling said:

66Mustang said:

@Autumn_Feeling I think you just summed up massive swathes of social media, definitely not a unique problem there

I’m very picky about what online communities I choose to contribute to these days as well

Same here. I’m cautious about using certain platforms or forums. There are good people out there but the toxic vocal minority spoil it for everyone.

I stopped using Instagram because it felt like a competition for likes and follows. Mostly, people who weren’t following my page liked my stuff and the people who were largely ignored it.

The reverse happens to me a lot. I’ve met people in real life at gigs and events over a four or five year period and they never kept in touch online. It was a one sided relationship which was frustrating.

I don’t know why people act like that. We should raise each other up.

I am a member of a Meetup Social Group and have found that the people I have met in person, cant be bothered to keep in touch online. I prefer this approach as opposed to giving them my number on or after a first meet.