meeting new people: online versus real-life

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i'm posting this in response to this other post by outrider, which in turn was a response to this other post of mine. i'm too lazy to phrase this as a proper op, but this is a topic that i'll probably keep talking about indefinitely, for as long as anyone has something else to add or ask. it was getting too off-topic, so i thought it deserved a new thread

anyone reading this thread, if you're confused and want some more context, feel free to ask

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yes and no... south american . i don't mention my exact country because i don't want to deal with smart-ass comments about it from people who don't know what they're talking about (there's always someone that makes those comments)


i can have "deep" conversations with strangers at a bus stop sometimes. my thought and my mood don't follow a linear progression. i talk about instant noodles, then next thing you know i'm talking about the meaning of life and death, then next thing you know i'm talking about a different brand of noodles

but even if i'm talking about the meaning of life and death for a moment, sometimes i just want to turn off my brain (it's probably not even on anyway, despite what my utterances may suggest), and it can be hard when your friends already have an image of you as both "the intense guy" and "the guy you can trust". i'm a sponge. i absorb other people's emotions (negative ones especially), and then i can't handle it. and the more i absorb, the more i gravitate toward dark-spiral types of thoughts, and the more it encourages others to express more emotion that i'll keep absorbing, and so on

as much as i'm "intense", i'm also unable to express emotions properly other than enjoyment or rage (i guess that puts my emotional age somewhere around early toddlerhood ), which means i'm limited to enjoyment or nothing. if i'm so much as annoyed, it's bound to turn into anger, and all i can do is pretend. by the time i've figured out how to express myself properly in the situation, it's too late, and it will be inappropriate if i do express myself. and i'll already be angry, which sure doesn't help

hence "feeling like a hologram". people think i'm okay (or okay with something) when i'm not, they think i'm having fun when i'm not, and they think i like them when i don't. and once they already think so, there's no way for me to clarify the situation without offending them. so it's like i'm not there. real-life situations don't offer you an escape or proper time to think. you need to deal with immediate interaction by interacting immediately. to me, group socialization = suppressing anger. to enjoy casual interaction, i need people who understand me in a "deep" sense, but who can still be lighthearted around me anyway


i enjoy it when i when enjoy it. i often miss it, really (sometimes i miss it a lot), but it's not something i can do on cue, which is an ability required for normal real-life interaction. no matter how well i can understand it, i can't do it. theoretical understanding only helps me realize that i'm doing things wrong, which is just depressing. having the chance to control my timing is very important to me

that's probably the main reason why i can't even fathom "getting to know" someone irl without talking to them extensively through some kind of text-based media first. it was possible when i was a teenager, because teenagers are all bored most of the time, and all concerned with issues of friendship and relationship and acceptance. but from college onwards there's no context for it anymore. the usual ways for socialization become pointless because of the gap. you're expected to have it all figured out already, and you're expected to focus on your future instead. you usually don't get a chance to breathe until maybe your 30s. and then if you have kids... well, good luck

to be clear, btw: i'm not looking for advice, i'm only talking about the way how i experience it all, and interested in hearing about the way how other people experience and approach the same issues


i'm not talking about a difference between generations though, i'm talking about age. i'm in my thirties. until a couple years ago, i felt old. today i feel young, because this is just the beginning of another chapter, and the past is history. and college in particular is ancient history to me by now. one of those two friends of mine is married. the other one has been divorced for a long time already. and i'm saving for my retirement

what's still ahead for you is already ancient history for me. so i'm not so much talking about prevailing preferences as i'm talking about what technology can (or can't) offer you compared to old-school socialization, regardless of current trends. the challenges of social isolation (and their respective solutions) at your age and mine are probably worlds apart

Removed.

Last edited by smudge on 28 Aug 2016, 12:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

what's going on. now i'm really confused . i'm wondering if you're confusing me with someone else. no worries though

this thread is really just a sequence to that conversation i was having with outrider, sort of parallel with everything else that was going on in that other thread. because it's something that i think about all the time and that i like to talk about. i wasn't thinking of anyone or any event in particular when i posted this

IMO talking to people in real life is much easier because online the conversation can die and when I try to keep it going it ends up sounding forced.

I feel it's easier to talk to people online than irl.

how do you maintain your real-life friend/relation/ships though? to me, unless there's something specific (and interesting) to do, or some daily routine that involves the other person (like school), it's like i get home, and that's it. they cease to exist. because i normally don't feel like going out anyway. if there's no reason to go out, i stay home indefinitely

even with the former best friend i talked about in the other thread. we knew other very well, and we talked a lot all the time about all types of things. we were friends from age 9 to 20. but every vacation time (at least until the internet became a thing), i simply didn't see him or talk to him or hear from him at all, even though he lived less than 10 minutes away on foot. during one of those vacations, his father had a heart attack and died. i had no idea until the beginning of the next school year . i thought he was joking when i asked if his father would be home in the afternoon that day and he said "my father died last month". he did like to make dark/absurdist/practical jokes like that

can you think of any reason why, or does it just feel easier? does it make it any easier for you to talk to someone irl when you already know them from the internet?

I feel like I can express myself a little better because I have more time to think of what to say than I do in real time. I think it's a little easier to talk to people irl (or on the phone) because we already know each other a little better and might have some more things to talk about from previous conversations online. It also might depend on the person too.

that's all true for me too. it's hard for me to imagine the opposite, like what retrogamer said it's like for him. i just can't picture it

i hate the telephone no matter what though. i only ever use it for quick calls to make arrangements and get things done (that much alone already took me years to get used to) or for conversations with my parents, because then it's mostly just me monologuing anyway. or else it feels totally pointless. it's like a parasite attached to my ear demanding my full attention and immediate responses, and i just want to get rid of it and get it over with

I don't always like them either because it sometimes feels awkward and forced. I think it really depends on who I'm talking to though. I usually feel more comfortable talking to other people who I can relate to. There's someone else on the spectrum who I met online and I usually feel more comfortable talking to them than other people, even though I still have some trouble getting out what I'm trying to say.

i guess you're talking more specifically about dating sites in this case? or maybe not?

the whole premise of dating sites feels to me like it's inherently forced. it may help you find someone (because it lists people interested in meeting new people, and supposedly it helps you find "good matches"), but it really doesn't help you start a natural conversation. you're left totally on your own to figure out what to talk about, like it's a task imposed on you and you're expected to make it sound fun and natural. so it's like "okay, what exactly are we doing here?", and the essence of the activity is "figuring out what to talk about". that's almost like the dictionary definition of awkward

[quote="anagram]i guess you're talking more specifically about dating sites in this case? or maybe not?[/quote]

No, it's just phone conversations in general. Even with people I know well it can feel awkward and forced. I think it really depends on what we are talking about and how much I can relate to them.

oh okay, you're talking about the phone. what threw me off was that you said you "don't always" like them either. that sounded too positive for my idea of what telephone conversations are like, so i immediately thought you were talking about the other part of my post

when i say i hate the phone, i really mean it. i only ever tried voice-skyping once, for less than 5 minutes. and we both agreed "nope. back to text-only". although she was more phone-phobic than i am. i did feel tempted to try it again later (the challenge kinda made it exciting), but she didn't want to

slw1990 is not talking about the phone. She was using a metaphor.

To "phone it in" means to do it without really thinking about it in depth or trying very hard. To use another metaphore, it's like mental autopilot.Sometimes not very well

As for real life conversation, I find in real life, I can often find something to talk about based on the context. It could even be based on humourous observations of what's going on around us. Online, there is no context. We exist in the virtual void, removed from any real life location or situational context.

Verbally, conversations can have a natural flow back and forth but online I find it difficult to keep the conversation going. Part of the problem is that NTs find it difficult to maintain the natural conversation flow in text and if they can't do it, I can't help them. This leads to the conversation becoming one sided and I'm the only one trying to keep it going. e.g. I ask questions, they give one word answers but they don't ask any questions as they would in real life. Also factor in the above mentioned lack of context and this makes it very difficult to keep the conversation going online over dating sites and yet I must.

I must because conversation is the social lubricant. Much like what mutual grooming is for chimps. I feel a little strange asking them out before I've talked to them for a little while and many of the girls will say it's too soon even after I've been chatting to them online for a few days.

They'll say they don't trust me or they don't know I'm not a murderer. This says a lot about the illogical NT thought process. That making small talk for a few weeks proves to them I'm not a murderer when really murdering sociopaths can be very skilled at acting like a normal person and patiently having normal conversations for a long period of time. This proves that the NT idea of trust is based on their emotions, not on facts.

Another idea they have based on emotions, not facts is the idea that there's a significant chance I could be a murderer in the first place. While it's possible the odds are one in a million. If they go on a date with me, there's a much higher chance they'll die in a traffic accident on the way to the date then the chance they'll get murdered. Especially since first dates tend to be in crowded public places such as restaurants.

i think i get it now. it sounds to me like your trouble with lack of context online is really because of lack of context, not so much because it's online (see my comment above about dating sites). i don't think ease of communication online really has much to do with any aspie/nt distinction. it sounds like those women are simply not engaged in the conversation. they're wary or bored. they don't see a reason to outright end the conversation, but they don't feel like talking either, so they keep waiting for you to say something that will make them interested (which never works if they're not already interested)

"i don't know you're not a murderer" is just a rude but socially accepted way for them to say that you still feel like total stranger to them, like a collection of facts with no glue holding those facts together as a real, believable, imaginable person. they want to be able to picture what you're like (so they'll have a mental blueprint to compare you to when they meet you), and the longer it goes on without them being able to picture you that way, the more suspicious it feels. and if you confront them about it, it only gets more suspicious. they want you to validate that they have reasons to distrust strangers, and they want you to acknowledge that, without some kind of affinity, you're still a stranger, and, without affinity, you'll keep being a stranger no matter how long you talk with each other

in other words, from my perspective, what seems to be missing is rapport and context for it develop, not really the means for it

I meant the phone when I was talking about the conversations feeling forced and awkward. It was late when I wrote that so sorry if what I said didn't make much sense.