Does your family and friends know you chat?

@rubyred wrote:

I am going to be really honest here… erm.. even my online pals dont know I am here :)

I kinda.. erm okay. I had the best pal in the world.. oh gosh we laughed n laughed. met up a few times etc.. she died suddenly and i wept, but as soon as i said ( my online pal) it was like.. ” oh NOT a REAL person then” ,, i could never grieve, i knew this lassie for 7 years.. I went to see her.. dont matter !

“not a real person”….grrrrrrr I hate that!

Of course we are real people, of course we form relationships, of course we care about people we chat to on a regular basis. That’s why when we discover someone is a sham or our trust is misplaced it aggrieves us so much. It’s no different to days gone by when people had penfriends and shared things they couldn’t share with people in their day to day lives, the physical distance allowing for a strange kind of intimacy as the troubled could share their woes and the caring people could offer words of support. And the laughs and the good times can be just as meaningful here as in day to day life. The only difference now is that it is more immediate and when someone betrays your trust it’s there for the (on-line) world to see but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and face the world with a smile and start all over again but maybe a little more guarded next time.

My true online friends are as important to me as my “real life” friends, albeit a different kind of relationship, and long may it continue. :D/

I didnt want to do a full quote of jens last post cos some of the quote posts end up taking up full pages :). I do agree fully with what jen said. i hate the ” not real ppl” thing. I have had this with my daughter and others. Do they think its robots sitting at these comps?? The pen pal analogy was excellent.

Most my family and mates know I chat to the people that live in my computer, my dad thinks we’re all freaks.

I have one mate that came in here one night when we were both drunk and he wanted to see what it was all about, and although he got a lot of abuse (he was a bit of an idiot, cos he was drunk), he wants to come back again… but his gf won’t let him cos she thinks its full of pervs, freaks and slappers!

No, but I wasn’t telling her that!! :lol: :lol:

If u lot cleaned up after yourselves, there would be more room!