Quid pro quo

Ive lost most of my online friends over time. I dont really know why, we just kind of stopped talking to each other after a while. Looking at my IM client, I only see one online right now I can actually talk to about stuff. On Live I barely play with anyone I met over the net anymore, IRL friends seem to rule that domain now. Shame, cause I though I had met some really cool people over the time I've spent on the net. Im typing this while listening to Memories by Weezer, completely coincidental. Weird.

I don't have any friends IRL, so I have to make do with online ones.

There have been many, many times when I sent an important or personal message via MSN and then spent ages being neurotic after I didn't get a response. In every single case there's been a good reason, whether the person was away or they didn't get the message or I just worked things up in my head much bigger than they really were. Try to chillaxe.

Two-faced? Not at all. People can change. And then quickly change back.

You're an idiot. If you expect people to hold to the same principles you hold yourself to then you're always going to be disappointed.

man up, for the love of god. people aren't going to be nice to you all the time, not even your closest friends. its the way of the world. no matter how close people may get, they can always get sick of one another. what makes friends worthwhile is the fact that they come back.

All but a small number of my IM friends have betrayed me in favour of Facebook (or as I prefer to call it, 'LOSERbook').

I don't even consider online friends actual friends at all. That's why they're virtual friends.

Your loss.

Of course, "virtual friends" are indeed real people, miles away. I've yet to find the flesh and blood source of "virtual pets".

I had a virtual pet, I failed to feed him for a fortnight and he starved to death.

Virtual friends don' starve to death, unless they're from Africa.

Therefore virtual friends are better.

Quid. Pro. Motherfucking. Quo.

I think that you perhaps actually mean 'Quod. Erat. Mothefucking. Demonstrandum."

I have friends online. I consider them true friends. But my question to Ziggy is: By your logic, does meeting online friends turn them in to true friends? What if I only met them once?

I find I have a vested interest in the answer, even though I afford Ziggy no authority on the issue.

And I wonder if the reverse is true? That someone you met in real life but now only converse with digitally is no longer a real friend? That implicates Nate's question also.

I strongly doubt many would question a friendship maintained by written correspondence using ligneous mail, certainly not when that was common practice. Does digital communication diminish this? Certainly it makes unfriendly correspondence more feasible, since a poorly spelled flame war via the medium of written page seems to have the potential for the rarity simile of the modern age, a la Hen's teeth.

Actually I was trying too hard to be cute.

So long as you have a plush testicle avatar, such efforts are unnecessary.

To Nate and Bullet Magnet: Yes of course a person is you're TRUE friend if you've met them in real life after you've conversed over the web. In my opinion, though, if you've only met them once they're acquaintances. I think words are harder to convey feelings than the inflections of speech and actually seeing someone's face. It just aint the same. And there are the creeps that send me friend requests on Myspace and won't even look me in the eye when I walk past them in real life. So basically I am a creep for being here.

I think there's an aspect of friendship which is easier to form online, and an aspect which is much harder to form online.

I have never offline met any friends that I had been introduced to online without there being some temporary awkwardness. Even with my old girlfriend.