My situation in life has given me a lot of thinking to do. I've been kind of cooped up in the house for a while and I haven't had many people to talk to. A lot of my friends I've either had to walk away from or have walked away from me for various reasons, and while I consider that a good thing (when I look at the people now absent from my life) it does tend to get lonely.
Someone I met recently suggested I should get online with social chats. It would be a good way to talk to people and socialize. I could make some friends that way and then I wouldn't be lonely all the time. She highly suggested the chat server she was a part of.
Aside from the drama storm that took place when she was on her chat here, I've done a lot of thinking about the whole idea. I mean, I've met a lot of people through chats over the years. Some of them were better people than others. Some of them turned out to be great people. The drama seemed in many ways to be worth it for the socialization and the friends made.
Then I thought about it a bit deeper. Chatting with people online is so much less fulfilling. I mean, sure, there are a couple of friends where chatting online is nice, since we don't get to talk much otherwise, but for the most part, I find it pretty empty. It's meaningless to talk to a bunch of other people I don't know and will likely never meet. These bonds are weak at best and if you go a week without talking to them, they often tend to forget who you are. It just doesn't seem like a deep and personal bond to me, unless you're talking about a local chat where you actually meet up with those people now and again.
In comparison, actual friends are very different. We're talking about people you form a serious bond with. True friends have been there in good times and in bad, and not just as text across a screen. They're the people who give you hugs or listen to you talk on the phone for hours about the latest good or bad in your life because you just needed to share. True friends try and find a way to help you out when they can, even if that's just in meeting you for coffee because you need to get out. On top of it all, when you spend time with these friends, your social cup can fill to overflowing. Neither of you may want to leave, but when you do you part ways feeling better about life. You feel like you can go even longer without the need of a social fix.
I've come to realize that I need to have some real social interaction in my life. Yes, I may feel lonely and stressed, but I'd rather have a good friend I can call or someone I can hang out with. I want to have a community again. I don't want to fill my time with endless conversations over a computer with people who are easy to bicker with because their friendships don't mean anything. I'd rather chat online with a good friend that I just don't get to see very often.
Looking at all of that, I've realized what I need, and what I don't. I don't need an empty world of online friends that share a cyber-universe with me. I don't need a chat network to support me when I'm down. What I really need are some good interpersonal interactions. I need to start making an effort to get out, see people, and make new friends. I need to be able to have an actual physical community of people I see on a regular basis, no matter what that regular basis may be.
I've started to work on that, in a way. I go to my kids' homeschool co-op every Monday. That gives me a bunch of moms to talk with. True, I must look out of place there with my dreads and my piercings, but no one seems to care. They're wonderful people. I've also gone to the local knitting group in the past, and I really need to start going again. I'm even considering taking quilting lessons. I don't count my dance classes because, let's face it, it's a lot of work to be the teacher and it's not the best time to socialize and relax. Even so, I think I really just need to get out there and meet people. Otherwise, I'm just going to end up feeling lonely all the time.
It's really time I make a change in my life. I need to surround myself with good people I enjoy sharing my time with. I need to find some things that I enjoy doing too, after all, hobbies are a big part of a person's life. Most importantly, I need to recognize that I deserve much better than an online group of people who will never truly know who I am. I may have my online friends, my message board friends, and things like that, but they should all come secondary and be much less needed than the friends I actually talk with. Internet friends can be useful in a lot of ways, but they'll never leave me feeling socially fulfilled.
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