ippy ([info]ippylovesyou) wrote in [info]worldofwarcraft,
@ 2007-08-18 16:42:00
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Real Life vs. Internet: Friendships
So I'm just curious, consider this somewhat of a poll;

What is your take on friendships on the internet vs real life? Specifically in World of Warcraft.

Is it negative to consider the people you know only online or through the game to be nearly as good as your real life friends?

Is it unfairly considered unnatural to form those bonds with people?

Theres two different sides to this that I know of; real life is superior and more meaningful then online fake relationships because you interact with the person in real life and understand their personality or friendships over the internet can be just as meaningful as real life ones, after all you spend most of your time talking that you can get a feel for their personality and morales and such.


My point of view;
Real life relationships are IMPORTANT. You need people around you to survive better in life, I believe that completely. I also feel that online friendships can be just as indepth, rewarding and good as those you build IRL. Theres arguments that the internet is dangerous, you can never tell if the person you're talking to is actually nice or out to get you, but I feel once you spend enough time on the net it becomes easy to distinguish personalities and whether or not a person's intentions are negative or positive. I honestly feel you take the same amount of risk when you go out each day. You can hang out with a person nearly every day IRL and they can turn out to be bad people just as people on the net, its all up in the air.

This is my view, and now I turn it over to all of you.
What do you think?
Can internet friendships be just as meaningful as real life ones? Do you think you can adequately get as good as a feel for someone's personality after talking to them for extended periods (and in our benefit, playing the game gives us a whole nother realm of being able to understand a person, how they react in situations, how they play..) or do you think its a waste of time and people on the net shouldn't have any sort of importance?

Lets get some input people :) I'm curious.

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[info]vivadawolf
2007-08-18 11:56 pm UTC (link)
I regard people on the internet the same as RL. If theres someone Im really close to in wow, then theyre more important than some random acquaintance I know irl... and of course, there are people in RL that are more important than acquaintances in wow.
There are a bunch of close relationships in my guild and I know they've gotten together in real lief...I also met a wow friend the other day :) It makes me feel bad when people abandon a plan with me in wow to do something else with their RL friends, but of course I understand that... doing things in RLs more important than a game right?

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[info]glenngunnerzero
2007-08-18 11:57 pm UTC (link)
Behind every avatar is a real person





Or a bot.

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[info]kniazhna
2007-08-19 12:00 am UTC (link)
Imho, it's just like pen pals, except before they just wrote letters only, and now you're also playing together and doing stuff, although virtual. And WoW is just another place for interaction. Don't see it any different, really :)

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[info]mckee92
2007-08-19 12:00 am UTC (link)
In my opinion Online friendships are valuable as 'real life' friendships. And as for the internet is dangerous with regards to if people are just acting nice and are out to get you, well isnt that the same as in the real world, sure its maybe harder to tell due to the facelessness of text, but still, I think that any friendship is a friendship, whether its online or not. I dont think its negative to form friendships in wow, just as its not negative to form friendships in anything else you do.

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[info]traceace
2007-08-19 12:04 am UTC (link)
Most of my friends right now are all people I've met online at some point and met up with them. I don't meet up with anyone without a lot of precautions (the first meeting I had with someone recently, even with a girl I've been talking to for three years, was in a very public place with a very large male friend and another female friend tagging along.), and as long as you're smart about it, it's actually an excellent place to find people of like mind.

I've found these relationships are a lot deeper than any of the ones where I just met the person randomly in school or at work or at a party. Maybe I've just been really lucky and have had all good experiences, but for the most part I find I myself and everyone I've met and am now hanging out with were far more open about themselves from the get go because the internet allows for anonymity. I feel so much more comfortable being my complete self knowing that I can just block someone if it doesn't turn out we have anything in common or something like that. I'm normally very shy in real life, and god, without the internet, I'm pretty sure I'd be incredibly fucking lonely. All the normal social situations people do at my age just isn't my thing.

I've yet to get close to anyone in WoW. I don't think I ever will. The guild I'm in is awesome, but mostly chat is just random shit about the game or silly things. I've gotten in touch with more people on things like LJ and stuff. But I figure WoW to some people is like the places I haunt where I pick up people to talk to, so I figured it'd be the same thing. :)

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[info]mckee92
2007-08-19 12:10 am UTC (link)
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, people are actually more truthful and confident online that IRL, because at the end of the day if you arent getting on with someone you dont have to still involve yourself with them.

I also find that since the people who play WoW all have that one fact in common, people are more likely on your wavelength, and not just random people you happen to have to work/go to school with.

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[info]traceace
2007-08-19 12:16 am UTC (link)
And you're not likely to have to worry about bumping into them in real life, too. XD It's easier to just let everything I usually hold back from people I first meet. There's always that fear that the person will think you're crazy or weird (not that I'm very weird - loving video gaming and being a female gets stares sometimes, though) when you don't know them well and try to open up. It's probably why the people I've met only in school know so much less about me than the people I know from the various spots I've met them in online communities. >_>

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[info]amarafox
2007-08-19 12:35 am UTC (link)
I have many friends on the Internet that I consider to be as good friends as I have IRL.

I've actually met a lot of great people through the net. 've also met some losers, but, like you said, there are people you meet in person thay don't show their true colours right away.

People in the great wars (WW1,WW2) met, made friends and fel in love via letters. I don't see this as any different :D

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[info]hhallahh
2007-08-19 12:48 am UTC (link)
Can internet friendships be just as meaningful as real life ones?

Yes... tell me a 'meaningful' aspect of a friendship - or hell, even a lover - which can be fulfilled IRL but not online (or long-distance.) Most shit that people will give you is really, really shallow. So the operative question would be whether or not you feel that shallow characteristics are essential to friendships. I personally try not to.

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[info]thewickerman89
2007-08-19 12:50 am UTC (link)
I feel it is harder to get close to an internet friend, as you can't really bond with them as much as a person in real life. As far as importance goes, that's just down to the individual.

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[info]pandemicpsyche
2007-08-19 01:11 am UTC (link)
From Wikipedia:

Often, people mitigate loneliness by interacting with others via the phone or the Internet. However, it is widely believed that purely remote relationships are no substitute for in-person relationships - an opinion based at least partially on the fact that a person's true identity is difficult to determine on the Internet, and also that such relationships are less stable. Commitment to a friend or acquaintance is less strong, partly because the remote situation makes it easier to ignore the demands friends place upon each other, and because it is harder to share emotions in such a way.

Most importantly however, human beings react much more strongly to direct face-to-face interaction (even without physical contact of any sort) than to the abstracted type of communication present in remote relationships. Human beings are naturally gregarious creatures, and social interaction - including subconscious forms like reading another person's body language - has been proven in various studies to be a key element to improve / retain memory and other brain functions.

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[info]terrortrain
2007-08-19 01:15 am UTC (link)
I find people I meet online have made much better, and more lasting friends and lovers than people I meet at school or work. I can get to know people online very easily, and I can usually find out we have loads of things in common before even talking to them. Almost every important friendship and relationship in my life has started online.

And I'm not socially awkward, either; I just rarely find anything in common with people I meet in day to day life.

As for lying and pretending and all that stuff, I've encountered plenty; but I've found an equal amount of the same off the internet.

I thought I'd have more to say on this subject. Anyway, I don't really make any distinctions between online and IRL - I've moved around all my life, so distance has never bothered me, and I've met and visited plenty of people and done lots of fun things.

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[info]sabiko
2007-08-19 01:16 am UTC (link)
I think online friendships are formed just by another thing in common. As in, if you meet a friend in real life, your common ground is living in the same area, or studying the same thing, or liking to drink, interest in films, etc. Online, it's pretty much the same thing, a message board for artists, an LJ community about knitting or something, or games like WoW, where gaming is obviously a shared interest.

In MMOs at least, I think the relationships pretty much parallel RL ones. Instead of going to a movie with your friends and acting like idiots, you do a 5-man while being dumb on voice chat. I know there are a few people I've gotten close to, who I talk to outside of the game (IM, phone), and would still maintain a relationship with if I quit. There are a few like that I still have from past MMOs as well.

The strangest part to me is what would happen if someone died. You might not ever even find out, they'd just vanish. In RL at least, when you know someone well, you get to know their circle of other friends and family, too. It's harder to do that from a distance.

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[info]sunflowrgoddess
2007-08-19 01:55 am UTC (link)
I think you can put whatever meaning you want into it and that'd be fine. Long as you're not hurting anyone else what does it matter?

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[info]mikepictor
2007-08-19 02:05 am UTC (link)
Online friendships can be entirely real, legitimate, valid, and true. However, they tend to be artificially close. People you know in real life, you could conceivably know for years, or even the rest of your life.

Online environments come and go. WoW will one day be non-existent, or you or your friend may stop playing....will you really keep up outside the game. Will you correspond, interact when the game doesn't power it?

Maybe....probably not though.

My only advice, do not let the online relationships supercede real life ones...the real life ones are the ones that are likely to last.

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[info]terrortrain
2007-08-19 02:32 am UTC (link)
My experience is anecdotal (of course) and far from normal, but it's been the opposite of this (and I'm not trying to argue your point, as it is valid - I'm just adding my own experiences). I stop talking to friends in life after a semester ends, or a shift changes, or they quit (or I quit), whereas I've kept up with the only good friend I made in WoW and he no longer plays, but we have many things in common outside the game.

My oldest friend I met online and have known for a decade. I've never really known anyone offline for more than a year or two, but my father was in the Navy and we moved constantly which contributed greatly to my point of view.

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[info]maziemaus
2007-08-20 09:40 pm UTC (link)
I met my husband online - quite by accident. Our communication progressed from a usenet newsgroup to IRC to the phone and then an airplane and the rest is history.

I've started to make friends in WoW with people I've only just met there. I consider that once the transition is made from chat in the game (or any venue) to voice (vent, etc.) to telephone and your real email address - ie., when you're ready to give someone true contact information - you're making real relationships.

I have a friend who just moved to Washington State - I still live in PA. The distance doesn't change our friendship, just how we can act on it. I believe it's the same in reverse with people I've come to know only online.

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[info]lordsnotrag
2007-08-19 02:29 am UTC (link)
Of late I find myself spending more time with the online connections than the real life ones. Combination of distance between me and my "local" friends, and a lack of ready funds to go visit as often as I like. So I consider them kinda important. :)

The people behind the graphical toons are the same kind of flesh and blood friends you see around you. I would actually consider it kinda rude to think of them in a lesser way just because you may not have met them face to face. Heck, there are a couple of those people I respect and trust more than those I do know outside of the computer.

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[info]mckee92
2007-08-19 02:49 am UTC (link)
Very valid point, I agree totally. I also respect some of my online friends more than IRL one. Think it stems from the fact that im friends with them because i like them, rather than because they are someone I have to deal with everyday.

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[info]smokngoat
2007-08-19 02:29 am UTC (link)
you need both

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[info]vitainpalus
2007-08-19 02:41 am UTC (link)
Absolutely internet friendships can be as meaningful as real life ones. Hell, I've had more meaningful internet friendships than RL ones. :D My husband and I just had a baby, and one of our very good guildmate friends told us to go out to dinner and send him the receipt and he'd "take us out to dinner". My old GM is going through cancer treatment and really, if it wasn't for us, I don't know who he'd turn to.

I also "grew up" on the internet. When I was 13 I got on my first multiline BBS, within that year got my mother involved, and before we knew it we were meeting up with online friends and that was our social circle. This has continued, and I've travelled to visit friends on the internet, and vice versa. Hell, I blame the internet for meeting my husband! :P

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[info]minx_alibis
2007-08-19 03:08 am UTC (link)
I have a saying that I have used for about the last 12 years or so of my online MUD/MUSH/MMORPG playing...

"You never truly know someone IRL, until you have played a MMO (MUD/MUSH) with them."

While RL relationships are the ideal, there is a little bit of people's personalities that they tend to hold back in day to day, face to face interaction. The person you are dating may be on their "best behavior" because they want to impress you. A friend may act very well toward you when they know you are around and you might never have had a problem with them IRL. People can and will change their behavior to "fit in" with someone they want to have a RL friendship or relationship with.
Then you get them online.
I don't know what it is about being online. Maybe it is the anonymity that one can feel because a person can just /ignore and walk away if the interaction doesn't suit them. People can switch to another character, race, class, faction and server to become a whole different person that no one will know about. That leads into the consequences for "bad behavior" not being as severe as it would be for real life interactions. IRL you can't change who you are without a lot of trouble. If people know you are an asshole IRL, it will be harder to break away from that and repair your reputation. In a game, changing who you are is as easy as raiding the XR with 20 epiced out 70's.

A case in point....
I once dated a guy IRL that I didn't have a problem with for 8 months. Things were decent with my boyfriend in the face to face interactions. He had started to play a MMO and after a while, convinced me to switch to the one he was playing. So I quit my old game, buy the new game, sign up and roll a character on his server so we can "play together" as he asked me to.
In the whole two weeks I was playing daily, I never saw his character's pixels once in-game. His character never gave me any help with quests, items or even a few coins to get me started. He was logged on to the only character he let me know about, for a total of 20 minutes, the whole two weeks. His excuse was that he was playing with some in-game friends on another server. So I ask if I can join him over there since he had asked me to buy this game "so we could play together". After a bit of hemming, hawing and a few excuses later, I realized that he really didn't want me to join him. He wasn't going to help me or take the time to see me. I was on my own because he was off doing what he wanted while I waited around for him to grace me with his presence.
So I started to drift away from him IRL because I took a good look at just how selfish, secretive and self-centered he really was. I went to play with some RL friends on another server and didn't go back to playing on the old server.
After a few months of barely talking to him in or out of the game, he created a character on my new server. Now this is what gets me. I'm supposed to drop everything to help HIM out and spend all my time in game doing things with him. I'm now asked to buy him stuff, give him money and help him with quests on my high level character. Ummmmm... no.
I'm just glad that I DID play the MMO with him because, while he was nice face to face, playing an MMO with him really made me see how he truly was. I don't know how much time I would have wasted if I had not seen this selfish side to him earlier and come to the realization that he wasn't just like this in a game. The hints were always there, it just took an online game to make me see them. I'm glad I never moved in with a person who thinks a relationship is all about them and not a two-way street.

Of course I did meet a few nice people on the net because of my MMO playing. A very select few have become RL friends and there was one lady who I wish I lived closer to because I would like to meet up IRL. She is someone I have known in WoW for over a year now and I think that we could carry over the internet friendship to a RL one if we didn't live cross-country from each other.
Is she less important than my RL friends just because we have an online friendship? No. I would do the same for her as I would for my RL friends when it comes to lending a helping hand or ear. The only difference is that I do them online with her and over vent, not IRL.

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[info]pirogoeth
2007-08-19 04:10 am UTC (link)
I believe friendships online are just as real as those IRL, and that just because you may not have met every one of the people you deem a friend IRL, doesn't mean the friendship's less valid or real. I don't think you should let anyone tell you any friendships/relationships you have with people via the internet are less real/valid just because of how you met them.

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[info]dmaster
2007-08-19 05:01 am UTC (link)
I think it's somewhat odd how people can even make a distinction between people "on the internet" and actual people. I mean it's not like someone is less of a person because you only know them through a particular interface whether it's a pasty white chunk of skin and guts, or a lengthy email, or a livejournal account or whatever.

But, the same sort of reasoning is why some people feel especially compelled (or excused maybe) to be a complete douchebag to people on the internet. After all, they're not real, they don't matter. They definitely won't show up anywhere in your "real life" right?
Lets consider another idea, which to me is an exact same sort of scenario...

You live in New York, but you move to California. (just make the distance long enough that you're probably not going to hang out with anyone you used to know unless one of them happens to move to your city or you're on a vacation of some sort okay?). Do the people you used to know in New York suddenly cease to exist to you? Are you suddenly not really friends anymore, even though you may email them on a daily basis or talk to them with an instant messaging client every day or whatever? I mean after all, they're just your internet friend now and not your real life friend since we're making distinctions about people based on their proximity to your physical self.

Oddly enough, I've actually met the vast majority of people I know "from the internet" at some point. Sometimes it was before I talked to them on LJ, sometimes it was afterwards. Some of them are the most awesome people I've ever known in my life, much more so than the people I've just met in person and never anywhere else or anything like that.

But, i understand a lot of people like to live in some sort of denial, and that having "internet friends" makes them some sort of freak or nerd or geek or whatever, and that's cool. To me, I think those people are missing out on a quality of life experience and connection with other people that just absolutely wasn't possible (or was significantly more difficult at least) even as little as 15 years ago.

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[info]glenngunnerzero
2007-08-19 05:21 am UTC (link)
"whether it's a pasty white chunk of skin and guts, or a lengthy email"
Is is wrong that I read that as if Zoidberg said it?

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[info]mysticchyna
2007-08-19 09:11 am UTC (link)
I agree with your views. Very well said.

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[info]ghostlight
2007-08-19 09:44 am UTC (link)
There is no difference. All interpersonal relationships are imaginary.

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[info]olanthe
2007-08-19 12:38 pm UTC (link)
While internet friendships lack the physical and body language stuff, they have some advantages that "real life" friendships lack. One is that you get to meet people from a wider geographical area and from social circles you never would encounter in your day to day life, so the internet can bring wonderful people into your life you never would have met otherwise. The other advantage is, ironically, the removal of the physical aspect - so you are forced to put aside your prejudices and assumptions (we all have them) and get to know the person inside without distractions.

I am fortunate to know a variety of great people from all over the world through the internet. I consider them friends on equal footing with the people I hang out with face to face.

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[info]juel
2007-08-19 03:16 pm UTC (link)
Considering I met my husband online, I take internet friendships REALLY seriously.

I have several friends in wow that I absolutely adore. I've met a few of them IRL as well. I even have one I regard as a younger sibling I've been that close to the guy for over two years now.

Plus I have no qualms about meeting folks from online IRL. I guess it comes from how I met my hubby. We share 90% of the same online friends too. =P

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[info]fayoreix2
2007-08-19 03:40 pm UTC (link)
People are not worth more or less than other people. You are forming a friendship with someone, it doesn't matter if they are near or far.

Personally, I play WoW with real life friends mainly, but I could most likely get along fine by myself. I'm admittedly more shy about asking for friends in WoW since this is my first character and I don't want to be invited to something and mess it up...

But yeah, judging real life relationships vs. those on the internet is like saying one person is potentially worth less than another which makes no sense to me.

I'm thankful for both my internet friends and my real life friends. They are made of win.:)

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[info]mckenzie3nick
2007-08-19 05:09 pm UTC (link)
most of the time IRL > IG. however, about 15% of the time I'd say that IG > IRL

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[info]beelzebutt
2007-08-19 06:04 pm UTC (link)
some of my online friends are the closest friends i've had for about 6 years. i used to feel bad about it, because, gosh, it makes it sound like i can't garner friendships offline. thats not true, though. i do have friendships outside of the internet, but more often than not i prefer my online friends. my online friendships have proved to be much more lasting than all of my offline ones and i believe that they will continue to be. i've received much more comfort and support from them than i have my close friends, i don't believe it to be artificial at all. i consider them my best friends.

i've never really made a friend in game though (i do, however, play with a couple of aforementioned friends), most of the people i'm friendly with in game are just acquaintances, like the some of the people i might talk to offline.

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[info]prufrockssong
2007-08-19 07:59 pm UTC (link)
Honestly I think online friends can be very meaningful (y halo der ippay) but they're not the same as real life friendships at all. I'm close to a lot of people online, yeah, but will they be able to make a midnight taco bell run with me? Not so much.

I mean I had the whole, "I'll be okay when I go back to school cause I still have WoW and my guild friends to keep me company!" but after 2 days I realized that not getting out of my room or not having people to hangout with sucked. Like, a lot. Plus, my roommate thought I was really weird.

But there can be a happy medium. I went out and made some friends and they came over to my room to use my big TV (one played games while the other did homework) and I could still talk to my online friends between classes, etc.

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[info]simplypip
2007-08-20 05:29 am UTC (link)
"Can internet friendships be just as meaningful as real life ones?"

Absolutely.

I'd give more details, but I'm about three hours late flying in, and would like to sleep before work. I may elaborate more tomorrw at work. D:

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[info]lady_arrogance
2007-08-20 08:06 am UTC (link)
I think that internet-friendships can be way more intense than RL-ones. Just because it's much easier to talk about problems/private problems/whatever when you don't have to look into the otherones eyes. Some of my closest and dearest friends are internet-friends.
Actually there is no difference between net and rl, at least for me. If the person is great I don't care where their come from and if I can have a drink with them or just type/phone...

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[info]ex_reyvin77
2007-08-20 09:28 pm UTC (link)
Hrmmm...it became longer than I intended. I posted it in my LJ to save those vulnerable to crits by walls o text. :D

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