INTERNET RELATIONS

If you’re reading this article then you are no stranger to the internet and its various chat programs. Over a period of years we gather a significant amount of friends with whom we are able to share just about anything with. Relations grow and more often than not there are some online friends that know us and understand us better than our closest people back home.

It is amazing how the internet gives one the opportunity to disclose the most intricate details about ones character to complete strangers with the assurance that one will never be judged or treated indifferently. We can withhold our identity and there are no guarantees that the person we are communicating with is who they say they are yet still with all honesty over the years we manage to find real people out there in an intricate yet simple web and maintain relations. Eventually via our online chats, video calling and Facebook these online relations become a “virtual reality” and  real friendships develop.

Years pass and we accompany our friends on the highs and lows of their various relationships with support and third party advice forums. We form an unspoken bond and eventually one day a really close friend, someone with whom you have spent seven years chatting with on various levels, posts pictures of a baby online. You look at these pictures and think to yourself, “I wonder who’s baby this is?” when in fact it is your age old friends baby!

It really is a bit of a shock because you believed that unlike real life relationships where people withhold information for fear of losing friends; with these online relations you really do have nothing to lose or gain except the company and friendships of these people. Realising that a friend could not share the single biggest event of their lives with you is really shocking and in every way really sad.

I guess like in real life, the virtual world comes with its own set of rules and regulations and experience is the best teacher in both worlds. Either way, I think we all have the ability to manage both worlds simultaneously and successfully whilst both can be incredibly rewarding.

And maybe our online friends don’t share certain information with us for fear of rejection or condemnation….and maybe the closeness of these friendships are remarkably similar to real life friendships. Whatever the reasons are, I know that some of my online friends have over the years supported me through the most trying times in my life and some of these people know me better than my best friends back home!