Online friends - help me understand

[McEwan]

I have a DSIS and a DBIL. My DBIL has cultivated a big group of friends online (people that he's never met as far as I can tell) through a shared interest. He's very active on social media and online, you'd think he was the friendliest guy around. He's always wishing people in this group happy birthday messages and he refers to them as his family.

In real-life, he's completely closed off, so that it's either extreme shyness or rudeness. My DSIS is the same, but he hasn't gone so far with the online group of friends.

I find it quite painful because I notice the difference between how they treat their real-life family, and how they are with their online family. For example, when we found out we were expecting a child, they took no interest. They refused to come to our wedding. If I talk to them, it's always a one-way conversation.

I'm really trying to understand how this might work - why would you create an online life for yourself and reject people in real-life? Is it just that people in real-life are complex whereas online, we can be simple?

Any thoughts?

Yes you have it in one, at the end. It's simple to cultivate online friendships because you can present exactly the facade you wish as can the people you talk to. You can choose when to talk, you can withdraw. There are no consequences and no baggage. It's escapism.
Real life friendships and family are fraught with consequences, responsibilities, baggage.

Online relationships are far less emotionally risky and come with far fewer obligations.

You can have effortless conversations about any subject you like, with only the people who will be interested/interesting. When you get overwhelmed/tired/bored you can just say "Gotta dash, catch you tomorrow" and switch tabs. You never have to meet up with them in person, go to their house, or attend their social functions. They will never phone you late at night because they broke up with their dumbass partner. You will never feel obliged to invite them round and spend 2 hours worrying that they're silently judging your taste in furniture. Your entire friendship can be conducted from your settee in your trackie bottoms.

I'm struggling to think of any downsides TBH

I've also cultivated online friends through shared interests, especially when younger, and many of them have become offline friends, and I relate to your BIL a lot.

It's down to a few things. When I was younger I was painfully shy, introverted and lacking confidence, and I'm still on the awkward side in person compared to when writing. I could just express myself more freely and be more relaxed in online communities than in real life.

I also had a few interests that not many people around me shared, and in those online communities I felt like I had found my people at last. I did a lot of growing up and self-discovery online and made some of my closest friends in those communities.

Try to think of them as just friends, not online friends. I don't know what your general family dynamic is like but it's not unusual for some people to prize their friends and chosen family over their bio family.

Thanks. I think it is a little painful to be rejected by family in this way. I find the disconnect between the online persona and the real-life persona jarring, but we shouldn't take it personally.

I'm much, much closer to many of my friends than my family.

You can't force love/common interests, and with family its circumstance over affinity.

Some people don't feel that they belong I. The family they were born into, they become closer to people they meet in life through shared interests or hobbies.

That's just how it is. I'm a bit sad that I'm not closer to my family, but not hugely sad as we are nothing alike and wouldn't be friends if we weren't related.

I'm much, much closer to many of my friends than my family.

I can understand that. What I don't really understand is when you are closer to online friends than "real-life" friends and family.

I have friends I met online before I met my DH. The friendships are real and the people are real; just because 99% of my interaction with them is online does not change that.

I'm really trying to understand how this might work - why would you create an online life for yourself and reject people in real-life? Is it just that people in real-life are complex whereas online, we can be simple?

Honestly, it sounds as if they prefer the friends they have chosen to interact with online to the people they are related to IRL. It also sounds as if they are blunt and rude in the way they show that, and it must be hurtful to experience.

What was hurtful this week is that it was my DNiece's birthday. My DBIL was scouting for "happy birthday" messages from people from this extended family (several thousands of people) on a popular SM platform. When he got some birthday messages, he was sending heart emojis, memes along the line of how great everyone is. We send cards and presents - nothing. It seems as if the moment you have the same shared interest, your value to them is immediately elevated.

I think they may come to regret it op, in time.

I had a very unusual and serious illness and health problems, there was an online forum for others in the same position, and I bonded with them as if they were family. I was very invested in my time and their well being the whole thing. The issue was that by doing so, I closed off my actual family and friends - initially because I did not want to bore them with my pain levels and being up all night in agony etc. But eventually they felt cut off and cut out. I did not mean for it to happen, but I looked elsewhere for support, and they felt pushed out.

I regret it now, as the people that are really there for you in real life are real life people, and not fake personas on the internet. It can never compare. So I would respect their decision, without taking it personally and enjoy time with other family members and friends and leave them to it.

I can't believe they didn't go to your wedding!!!!
I am not sure I would even want a close relationship, or any relationship after that!

@pog100

Yes you have it in one, at the end. It's simple to cultivate online friendships because you can present exactly the facade you wish as can the people you talk to. You can choose when to talk, you can withdraw. There are no consequences and no baggage. It's escapism. Real life friendships and family are fraught with consequences, responsibilities, baggage.

This is so true. Self image and ego and controlling who knows/thinks what about you.

You really can't underestimate the dopamine hit that social media can administer. Likes/hearts etc have all shown to trigger brains in the same way as drugs.

Real life can't compete.

I can sort of understand if the people you have in your real life aren't really people you gel with and the people on your social media are. I've been there to some extent where my social life was 90% virtual with people I kept in touch with whereas I just could meet the right real life people.

The problem is it sounds like they aren't really trying with family members and take them for granted.

Firstly, there's no reason for you to he close to your brother in law. He's just a man your sister married. That's the only reason he's not a stranger.

It's quite easy to put a negative slant on who people are online vs who they are in real life; to se them as fake, pretending etc. But it's not always like that.

I struggle in real life. I was emotionally and physically abused as a child and it has had a huge impact on me. I find it difficult to sustain real life friendships etc as a result.

Online, Ia the real me. The person everyone else sees in real.life is the fake me. The mask. The person who worries about everything. But, online, I dont have to be like that. Partly because my contributions to conversations can be reviewed before I send them, partly becaus I'm safe at home, partly because I'm never going to have touch Dutch courage and make a fool of myself.

The online me is a far more genuine version of Me than the real life one. It's who I would have been, I think, if I hadn't had the experiences i did.