One Sided
I had an interestingand very shortconversation with somebody online this evening that I had considered a friend over the last year. The conversation more or less confirmed most of the problems with the wider “social internet” for me, and made me think twice about bothering to reach out any more.
I'm not sure if this is the experience of others, but for me at least it's becoming far too common to ignore; I find myself continually making the running in keeping wider friendships alivesending an occasional “how are you?”, or “how's it going?” via email, or instant messenger. If I don't start a conversation, the conversation isn't going to happen, because it seems many people online are almost totally self interested. If I start a conversation and then vanish, the other person won't enquire after methey will presume I don't care, and (as happened tonight) accuse me of wasting their time. If I then question their attitude, they will immediately disconnect from me across every social network where we have any sort of connection.
When did the internet become so self obsessed? When did people stop considering that others may have a life away from internet thatcuriously enoughdoesn't revolve around them in any way, shape, or form? When did people become so unforgiving?I guess we have to believe that the narcissistic, attention seeking, self interested people are the minorityotherwise the vast interconnected world we play a part in becomes worthless.