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   Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:22 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

   https://yiff.life/@EeveeEuphoria/110907242009752007

   Want to give this thread some justice because it gets straight into the very real social atrophy and barriers to escaping the holographic beer hall that induces and reinforces that social atrophy, and rightly insists that this wasn't an entirely self selected mode of socializing and how bleak the whole situation is seemingly having to start from scratch.

   It's hella painful that it hits close to home, what with me being terminally online since the late 90s, and not being fully consumed by online socialization and having some necessary social legs outside the holographic beerhall even as social anxiety and fear of rejection and bad times still has me neglect those social legs more than I should.

   However, ever the loosey goosey self loathing hypocrite that uses 'terminally online' as a pejorative to identify a set of people that even bewilder my seasoned Very Online ass by how they are and how the social engagements go to extreme untested surety, there is a very unpleasing and unpleasant reality afoot about all of it, and a boilerplate solution in grasp:

   You might literally have to crawl through shards of glass to seek and find buddies where you can develop a parallel but different social intimacy that exists offline and isn't beholden to all the structural and meta cultural shit of very online socializing. I know! WHAT A FUCKING RIP OFF! To be dropped on an island and survive as best you can only to be told you gotta swim through terrible shark infested waters, having never even really swam once in your life, not even the vestigial time with floaties on your arms kicks in to guide.

   The potential gain isn't so much about replacing online socialization full of the bounty of idealistic outcomes but providing relief from the self alienation of online socialization as needed, and to temper the self reinforcing self alienation of 'the only people who get me in the way I wanna be got exist online'.

   And ever the contrarian, I can't solve my own gripes and feeling of being stuck, but I can solve it by proxy and then feel a little more confidence and a little less catastrophe in doing little low stakes things that aren't strictly about finding besties in quick time, but keeping atrophy and defeatism about the atrophy forever on the horizon to run from.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:19 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     One advantage I do have in engagement and disposition with the internet over my younger peers is that the impulse to convert online to offline was drilled into my head. AOL instant messenger was how I arranged my first date, with a Big City Girl, also how I met my first girlfriend, also a Big City Girl. I used myspace for multiple hookups in my 20s, much more than using my in person charms and wiles, although there were a few folks where it was on and poppin outta of seeming nowhere. This is all to emphasize that at some point, online space became detatched from that conversion, a self sustaining and self replicating means to its own end, and thats something that even in my average of 8 hours of screen time over 25 years...seemed like a dead end on the whole. Better to pick up a good book or fun game or doodle with music than be confined to the holographic beer hall

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:19 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ciggysmokebringer "Better to pick up a good book or fun game or doodle with music than be confined to the holographic beer hall" that may be true for big online communities like forums or whatever where it isn't about meaningful specific relationships as just "having a crowd," but like, all of my personal, one to one friends that I've supported through hardships, and have supported me through the same, who I've poured my heart out to and listened to their deepest darkest fears and secrets, who I've swapped life advice with and everyday updates and real names and addresses and all the things that best friends are supposed to have, are online too, and I don't think that is "ultimately a dead end" or whatever. I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion except for prejudice. It would be better if I could see them in meatspace too, but I don't think relationships over the wire are any less legitimate or authentic, and it's a very small set of people — who have to be at the center of a large number of intersecting Venn diagrams — that I can really be comfortable having a really meaningful relationship with.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:21 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     I got a lotta thoughts on why the holographic beerhall is so great but such a tarpit that gets people stuck, and how miserable it is thrashing but also how miserable it is just taking it and accepting it.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:21 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     Part of why I bristle about the defeatism is that I am in a very similar boat - not identical, but similar build, similar course, similar experiences on deck and in the engine rooom, and its like, almost any time I try to kick up some low stakes 'get to know one another gently' thing with people like myself in mind, it is exceedingly difficult to actually pull it together - despite trying to build it, people dont come and the reaction that I always have temporarily is 'why do I even fucking bother' and I lick my wounded heart and then let it eventually wash off of me before I try to pull something together again. Its like, I know a small cookout at the park that isnt about anything purposeful but hanging or clad with a distinct out loud preselection vibe to it seems like a lesser way to spend 3 hours compared to the holographic beer hall that is always there and gets to the meat very quickly, I feel that shit in my bones all the time but...its just, well, its a type of neccesary relief that is reflexively refused. I dont know what to do about it on my end at this point but just keep putting the boat in the water

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:15:21 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     I mean, the bet I keep putting on the table that keeps losing is that it might be nice to meet your local alienated peers that raise all these very real impediments and hate being stuck where they are with it but I got deep enough pockets (willful spiteful defiance writes a lotta checks actually) to keep placing that bet

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:17:03 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ciggysmokebringer and like, when my disability allows, I do go out too, talk to and hang out with and organize with the local leftist orgs, shit like that. I'd be going to the punk shows here that happen every weekend if my disability didn't make that literally excruciating. And I'm part of a group of about 13 or so trans people trying to organize a regular biweekly meet up and support group. But my closest friends happen to be online and I don't think that makes those relationships fake.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 06:59:32 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl well thats the thing about it where i think some of my hypocritical antipathy comes from - its not so much prejudice so much as being incredibly fearful of vesting myself into something and it being smashed apart and having nowhere else to turn to. And whenever people are telling me about the misery that their online community is inducing in them, or what interlopers to that community are inducing on everyone, I wish I had some kinda better answer than disengage and regroup, since thats all Ive ever been able to do to not let it all get to me.

     Over the decades and with all the convos with all sorts going through this same ride, I know that its a fine line between saying something is lesser and saying something has different limits and parameters. And I dont think the online connections we make are lesser or phony but they are distinctly different in how others can and will be there for you (and who you actually bump into) and theres enough of a pulse that something feels missing despite the emotional intimacy across the internet being formed and in play and very rewarding.

     I dont want you to get the impression that I have it all figured and am coasting just fine now cause Im not, like I am constantly frustrated by this for myself - lack of people I love and trust who will be there for me as I am there for them and trying to figure out why it is so damn difficult it is from a variety of angles. But for the 80% of this being highly relatable, the 20% that isnt comes down to lashing out against resignation to this just how it is and shall be.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 07:40:00 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ciggysmokebringer I hear you. It's sometimes rough counseling a friend through a bad breakup and a new relationship or whatever when you can't just show up at their house with a beer and a pizza for them to make sure they eat and take care of themselves or sit with them on the couch with your arm around them to make sure they don't feel alone. I wish I wasn't so picky so that it would be easier for me to find people that I can feel comfortable opening up to in the real world but honestly I feel more comfortable opening up about tough topics over text rather than in person anyway so...

     I think another big difference between your experience and mine is that I actually don't take much part in any big online communities oriented around special interests or hobbies or games pretty much at all. Instead, I have a general presence in places like that and on social media like Mastodon and occasionally pick out specific people who seem especially compatible with me to reach out to you on a one-on-one basis and make friends over private messages on Discord or Signal. And then eventually once I trust them enough I introduce them to the group Discord server that I have for my closest friends (and then they start dating each other XP). So I really don't have that experience of some online community I was invested in shattering or being taken down or being overrun by toxic people or whatever because that's not really how I approach things. In fact I'm going to replace my close friend Discord server with a self-hosted open source clone of Discord pretty soon, I'm actually making contributions to their open source Android app specifically with an eye toward making the app useful by me and all of my friends. So that removes yet another layer of having to worry about things outside of our control making the relationships not work.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 19-Aug-2023 09:28:00 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl Oh God how I wish I could be there with a large pizza, a 6er of their favorite beer and all the hugs and ears till the birds start chirping, like god damn you nailed it.

     And yeah, I was was big time into online communities for my interests and to pick up new ones and learn about things by proxy and vicariousness, but I came to realize a lot of the gaming ones reflected back associations I really didn't like put upon me.

     Gamergate, even though I was on the edges of it simply being a gamer on forums, really had me question whether it was good and wise to devote so much of my free time to gaming and socializing around gaming even as I was a noxious asshole myself. Like, these are my associates, these fucking pricks, really, well I refuse! I got kicked off plenty of forums for being a handful but that was like a shot ringing out in the night and I didnt want that for me.

     And the whole thing that even started it for me in 2012 was getting the boot from a really good forum that had tons of flesh and blood playmates in my area who I foolishly and blithely cut myself off from because I just couldn't resist tweaking people and playing around with the rules.

     Lol, sheesh, I could just talk and talk about this all day...but to kinda wrap the thought up

     At this point after fleshing some of this out with you, I realize that a lot of why I spit at being Very Online despite being Very Online, is one part my own limits with being Very Online in self identity and connecting, one part feeling stuck knowing I don't absolutely have to be, one part there being a lack of levity of thought online where you can taste the flavor of site the original thought emanated from and why it is so utterly self confident even in complete derangement...and these are supposta be my folks or something. Its not the other people in the boat with me in their similar but variety of ways, its the quality of the trip and how there is only the boat sometimes for better or worse.