The Problem with Online Friendship
The problem with online friendship is that when things go wrong, we split. When I say something that makes you uncomfortable, or when you offend me, we’ll go our separate ways more often than not. And this flies in the face of how people usually become friends.
True friendship only happens when people honestly share their lives with one another. Inevitably, one person will upset the other. This is what happens when you put flawed humans in a room together: they start breaking things. Usually each other.
But something beautiful happens when we push through that initial discomfort and offense and learn to forgive each other. Intimacy is formed. Trust is established. And this, incidentally, is why the Internet makes for a pretty lousy connections between friends.
A decade or so ago, we started doing something we’ve never done previously.
We started making friends with people we had never met. Sure, we used to do pen pals and long-distance relationships, but we’ve never had a 24/7 shared connection as is now available to us, thanks to the internet.
Something odd happens with this heightened level of intimacy without commitment. People get sensitive. Because I know what you ate for breakfast or what TV show you watched last night, I feel like I “know you”. We are connected to each other – and sometimes not always superficially. We may share legitimate, real-life interactions. As a result, we feel like we really understand each other. And maybe we do, in some way.
But the problem comes when one of us says something to get on the other’s nerves. And trust me, it’s going to happen. Then, we are in a pickle. Because it’s easy to ignore people online, to play passive-aggressive and give the cold shoulder. And the worst part is they have no idea, or you learn that their supposed connection to your friendship, was just that.
It is easier to write off online relationships than offline ones. And this scares me. Because I have a few of these web-based friendships. And I want them to count. I want this connection to matter – as much as it can. What if we didn’t walk away when things got hard? What if we got to know each other, warts and all? Is that too much to ask? I think for some it is.
I’m really just talking about buy-in. What if we were really committed? What if I cared enough to stick it out, even after that dumb tweet or stupid status update you wrote? Well, then we might actually be friends.
I’ve learnt the hard way, sadly, that online friendships rarely matter in the way our face to face one’s do. A couple of years ago, I had a highly valued online friendship, at least it was on my part. What I learned from it though, was that as long as I fed the ego of my friend, sometimes inadvertently, everything was seemingly fine. Not that I was acutely aware that I was “feeding her ego”.
The moment I needed any level of basic acknowledgment or emotional support from my friend, it wasn’t there. It took me a long time to understand that everything was about her own needs, and as long as the conversations remained focused on her life and achievements, everything was “hunky dory”. If I sound bitter, yes I was. My hurt engulfed me, but I think it was meant to. I wanted authenticity from our friendship, but her “closed book” approach to her own life didn’t allow for that. I could see through her thinly veiled facade, maybe in time she would too? That was my naïve thinking. And while it is up to each of us what we share and with whom, that true human connection with another is lost when we don’t. Ultimately I don’t want superficial friendships in my life. I want friendships that stand for more than that.
She’s not a bad person, she just wasn’t a good friend to me. Good friends are emotionally available to us when we inevitably experience a crises, even sometimes when going through their own. Friendship is after all, a two way street, or at least it should be. Maybe the difference is, she knew she could count on me, no matter sunny skies or grey. Perhaps in the recess of my own mind, I initially made considerable excuses for her poor behaviour towards me, rather than calling her out on it. I should’ve acted sooner. That’s on me and I accept that.
When I did summon the courage to speak my truth and call her out on how she’d treated me, I somehow knew it was the beginning of the end of our friendship. It was ugly, painful and I felt gaslighted. Suddenly I was too needy, too available and well, I shouldn’t have taken things she’d written to me about so literally, even if her writings created legitimate concerns in me regarding her well-being.
Rather than maturely reflecting on her own behaviour, I felt character assassinated in the worst possible way. After all, I didn’t really count in the way “real friends did”. Ouch! That was the final stinging nettle for me.
I hastily retreated licking my own wounds.
I felt confused and humiliated, that in some way I had caused the fracture in our friendship. I guess that’s the point of gaslighting behaviour. You begin to doubt yourself and your own contribution to something or someone.
As a result, I became cautious and reluctant to build connections with others online. And honestly, I think that’s a shame. My experience with my former friend eroded both my self esteem and trust for the longest of time before I regained the confidence to reach out to others again, but I am slowly getting there.
At the end of the day, I learned a valuable lesson in setting clear boundaries with others and what I am prepared and not prepared to accept regarding my time, commitment and friendship.
As for my former online friend, I still miss her, and the fun, silly banter and occasional honesty it produced, but like any “relationship”, when it continually fed my own doubts and insecurities about myself, it was well and truly time to let go. And I’m in a much better place emotionally as a result. It hasn’t surprised me that I haven’t heard from her since…sometimes we are not in the same emotional space or might never be.
