Maintaining friendship.

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Thank you everyone, for very helpful posts.

I have the same problem. People like me online and want to be my friends. But I'm not always able to keep them, mainly because sometimes I get into the state when I don't feel like talking to anybody online and that can come off as rude. So I learned that the beast thing to do is to maintain contact with these people. It's important to keep the friendship going. Even if you don't feel a need for it, send them a message at least once a week or once in two weeks.

Same rules apply to real life friendhips, but I always had a problem making friends in real life because of my inability to hold chit chat and small talk.

Thanks.

It's not completely unrealistic.

With really good friends of long standing it is possible to let communication slide and when you next hear from each other you can pretty much pick up where you left emotionally, but you have to catch up on information about each other and events that have happened while you are not in contact.

When I say long standing, I'm talking 25 years plus (yes I am that old). These are of course real life friends (from school & uni, before the Internet) but I now live a long way away from them and don't see them much. I too have the difficulty of coming across as a bit intense when I am keen on someone's friendship. But that is who I am, I don't exactly hold back. Or rather I didn't used to hold back but now I do a bit more. Not every word, view or opinion that is in my head has to come out of my mouth, as it were.

You have carefully avoided saying what caused the bust up with your online friends. So I guess you know why it happened. I don't really understand the notion of online friendships (my age again no doubt). It's harder, but better, I think, to make real life ones. You only need one or two good ones.

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I am so bad at this that I chose "burnbridge" as my handle.

I have only two friends who call me just to chat periodically, everyone else drops me when my usefulness has expired. Like they are just putting up with me long enough to get some work or favors out of me.

Also, I never have the impetus to call someone or go hang out with people. I like hanging out, it just doesn't occur to me. This is one reason why I like to live with people, because I don't have to go looking. Most people would interpret me not calling or not pursuing a friendship as antisocial behavior.

I'm sorry to have to bring up my age again (wrong side of 40), but I can only guess that online friendship is a bit like having pen friends, if you can imagine what that was! It involved writing actual hard copy letters to each other and (ha!) post them by snail mail. Those were the days. I had a few of those from time to time.

What I would say is that the sheer effort & time delay involved with posting etc meant that we didn't fire off ill-considered impulsive messages, in some form of text speak / shorthand which is so open to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I assume that's how people fall out with each other online.

But only writing to each other enabled you to be much "better" people on the page than you were in real life. I don't mean writing lies, just projecting all your good points. Meeting up in real life over time does give you a more balanced picture of a person.

I also nearly fell out permanently with my best real life friend (I made some ill considered remarks about her which got back to her) and things were pretty grim for a year or two but we have managed to remain civil and eventually reconnected by just moving on and ignoring the rift. We're both stubborn as h*ll so neither of us has backed down or apologised.

I'm glad you know someone at work you consider your friend. You already know not to push this. I've scared people off in the past in whose friendship I was interested, they weren't keen, that I just had to accept. But at work you can ask to go for a coffee with someone without it being too stressy, just for a chat. As you have work in common that makes finding topics easier.

I get confused on how your suppose to maintain friendships. Like this flow of contact, going with the flow concept. I either will try really hard to maintain a friendship or let it go. I found out that I have to try to keep friendships going. The moment last year, I got so exhausted from school work, I stopped trying and I could feel my friendships falling apart from me. I only maintained the friendships that meant the most to me. I either overdo it or underdo it.

I'm not good at keeping friends. it was so much easier when I was a kid because all you had to do was keep playing with them doing the same stuff over and over. Plus they would keep coming over to play so that was easy. Now it's hard as an adult. I have very few online friends I have been friends with over the years. Most I have lost contact with, some I have lost because of my own sensitivity and stupidity and I ended up blocking them and then feeling too bad to unblock them because I am a lousy friend so that means I am not their true friend. I don't expect them to forgive me either so I just avoid them and they will never know I was a bad friend all those years.

If I look at it objectively, I'm bad at it. I think it could be an issue more that like, I initially impress people, then as they get to know me more, they just go "wtf." So I'm VERY good at you know, being initially friendly and stuff to people, but they don't seem to for the most part want much to do with me.

I think another thing too is, my old circle of friends have very different interests than I do now. Basically, I went from "nerd" in high school to "jock" as an adult. Odd how things work out like that. So like, in the media I like, I'm more on the "nerd" camp, but in the things I do, I'm more like a jock type person. But I also don't party like at all ever.

I do got friends, though, online I got like 5 or so, and in real life, probably another 5. I mean, I know lots more people than that, but that's all I'd count as friends. There's a big difference between friends and acquaintances, that's what I had to realize.

For me, the easiest way to define a friend is whoever is left at the end.

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Oh, I know many people who I can "do stuff" with. I am "loud" and have a lot of skills that the DIY kids covet.

It's the people that I can "do nothing" with that are so few. One of them is sort of fading away now, lost in her new boyfriend interest.

Further point of reference, the two real friends I do have, I did not make until 3 years ago. So who knows how long we'll keep in contact. Still, 3 years is twice as long as I've been able to keep a friendship in the past. So I seem to be developing this skill, albeit in a ridiculously slow manner.

unfortunately i'm rubbish at it

i get sad when i have noone to do anything with. but i dunno if i mind that much. i'm content with the past being the past and don't feel the constant need to 'reunite' with people like everyone else seems to

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Thanks.

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