Making online friends
oxidation
my conversational skills by practicing online. So I'm signed up with the
AIM thing and the ICQ thing. Now what? At this moment, I'm staring at a
window which is blank except for the name of a chick I met on an online
dating service. It didn't occur to me that you have to know people before
you can start chatting on these things unlike IRC. I know some a.s.s.
people have talked about using instant messengers. I assume that most of
you don't have many friends IRL so how did you go about making friends
online? I'm a little curious.
And if anyone would care to chat you can email me and I'll give my handle
and "UIN" information. I'm afraid to post it here for everyone to see
because a few people from this newsgroup creep me out and I don't want them
harassing me all the time. :\
Please excuse me, I have to find a job now.
--
"In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity." --from a fortune
cookie
Jessica A.
news:acjo5f$c0t$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
> And if anyone would care to chat you can email me and I'll give my handle
> and "UIN" information. I'm afraid to post it here for everyone to see
> because a few people from this newsgroup creep me out and I don't want
them
> harassing me all the time. :\
I'm assuming somethingorother.com isn't a real address. Feel free to email
me, I have icq and I promise to try not to creep you out.
oxidation
"Jessica A." <jessica1RE...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:ueqqtkm...@corp.supernews.com...
Its a real email address and you don't creep me out. :)
XSW
"oxidation" <oxid...@somethingorother.com> wrote in message
news:acjo5f$c0t$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
> you don't have many friends IRL so how did you go about making friends
> online?
I personally don't have many online friends either, but i met some of them
thru online support groups. (I find it easier to talk to people who are just
as fucked up as me, which is a bad thing and i should learn to relate to
normal folks also.)
What i really want to know is get to know local people in my town online.
That would be cool, because i could meet with them.
TeknoVejitta
I can't even count how many 'friends' I have online, and even some
girlfriends, but when you get from behing that computer, you're still the
same old you.
TeknoVejitta
--
Could be worse.
A woman could cut off your penis
and throw it out the window of a moving car.
noname
"XSW" <dontm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MleH8.12585$Mn6.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
out to be really cool, a really nice, shy guy. :)
Restless Scorpio
> Feel free to email
> me, I have icq and I promise to try not to creep you out.
On the contrary, Jessica, I think you probably epitomize the ideal
woman for many of the guys here. You're logical, you understand
us, and you play chess. I'd be in heaven! :)
Jessica A.
news:c048a704.02052...@posting.google.com...
It's very nice of you to say, but it's not true. I'm not exactly one of the
hot chicks that everyone wishes they could be with. I'm more the boring
type who is invisible and always preoccupied with my books.
William Parker
>> On the contrary, Jessica, I think you probably epitomize the ideal
>> woman for many of the guys here. You're logical, you understand
>> us, and you play chess. I'd be in heaven! :)
>
> It's very nice of you to say, but it's not true. I'm not exactly one
> of the hot chicks that everyone wishes they could be with. I'm more
> the boring type who is invisible and always preoccupied with my books.
Yeah, whatever:)
Dead Guy
> Your therapist is wrong.
> I can't even count how many 'friends' I have online, and even some
> girlfriends, but when you get from behing that computer, you're still the
> same old you.
>
If your shyness is the result of "not being able to come up with
enough to say", it might help. In that respect, it helped me with my
conversational skills. Its not going to help with your self esteem,
confidence, or whether you are prone to keep your mouth shut because
you talk in a shaky, nervous kind of way.
meg
news:acjo5f$c0t$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
> Okay, I've taken my therapist's advice and I'm making an effort to
> improve my conversational skills by practicing online. So I'm signed
> up with the AIM thing and the ICQ thing. Now what? At this moment,
> I'm staring at a window which is blank except for the name of a chick
> I met on an online dating service. It didn't occur to me that you
> have to know people before you can start chatting on these things
> unlike IRC. I know some a.s.s. people have talked about using instant
> messengers. I assume that most of you don't have many friends IRL so
> how did you go about making friends online? I'm a little curious.
Go where people are.. play games that have some element of casual
interaction in them, try chat rooms or message boards or newsgroups.
Take a little initiative and try reaching out to people and being
friendly. If they think you're weird, it doesn't matter - you literally
won't ever see them again. Also, if I'm remembering right, I think ICQ
has a feature that lets you chat with people at random (these are all
people who have specified that they're willing to talk to random
strangers). A lot of porn spam in that ("Heya! Visit me and my friends
at..."), but I'm sure a few nice people can be found if you're
persistant.
Once they're on your contact list, be sure that you initiate a few of the
conversations rather than waiting around for them to start, to let them
know that you're interested in talking to them. When you're going
through that awkward first few minutes, try asking a lot of questions and
getting them talking about themselves and their own interests.
I have to say though, based on my experience, it may not help much. I
used to say back in high school that "improving my conversational
skills" was why I spent my evenings chatting with online friends, but the
easier it got and the more time I spent talking to people online the more
I withdrew from the people around me IRL. It's easy for a shy person to
end up spending way too much time online, because it's a much less
painful way to interact with people.. it's a lot of fun sometimes, and
you get to make connections that are so hard to do in person.
However, I've met some great people online. And to some degree my
friendships have helped me grow a bit as a person. But my conversational
skills have not improved in all this time, because it's a different way
to converse. I'm able to speak pretty fluently in text, and I tend to
babble on and on.. but when I got on the phone with an online friend, I
had absolutely nothing to say. When I meet people in public, I still
have nothing to say.. I draw a complete blank. Can you imagine? .. meg,
with nothing to say!! I wouldn't be surprised if you found the same
thing.. but it may not be the same for you. Good luck, I'll send you my
contact info sometime and you can 'practice' on me if you like. :)
> Please excuse me, I have to find a job now.
Poor you.. a summer job, or a "real" one?
anon-...@anon.twwells.com
On Thu, 23 May 2002, Jessica A. wrote:
> It's very nice of you to say, but it's not true. I'm not exactly one of the
> hot chicks that everyone wishes they could be with. I'm more the boring
> type who is invisible and always preoccupied with my books.
"Hot chicks" don't do it for me. The more intellectual/weird, the better.
--
For info about this service, see http://anon.twwells.com/help/ or e-mail:
he...@anon.twwells.com -- for an automatically returned help message
ad...@anon.twwells.com -- for the service's administrator
ano...@anon.twwells.com -- anonymous mail to the administrator
lorienelf
> "TeknoVejitta" <TeknoVeji...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<3ced7671$0$20...@news2.zeelandnet.nl>...
> > Your therapist is wrong.
> > I can't even count how many 'friends' I have online, and even some
> > girlfriends, but when you get from behing that computer, you're still the
> > same old you.
> >
>
> If your shyness is the result of "not being able to come up with
> enough to say", it might help. In that respect, it helped me with my
> conversational skills. Its not going to help with your self esteem,
> confidence, or whether you are prone to keep your mouth shut because
> you talk in a shaky, nervous kind of way.
>
Very true. I met my fiance online and have lots of online friends.
But I'm still incredibly shy in real life. I can jabber away online,
but put me in front of real people, and my lips become sealed. My
problem is not having nothing to say, but not having the confidence to
say it.
btw - oxidation: I meet people playing online games (like anarchy
online and everquest). That way if there is no one on to talk with at
the moment, at least I can go around and kill things :p
-lorienelf
XSW
"noname" <shygir...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ack9ro$1mgs$1...@reader.nmix.net...
where'd u meet him... and how'd u find the place, what did u search for?
cr8ive
> many friends IRL so how did you go
> about making friends online? I'm a little
> curious.
You should try msn chat or talkcity.com's chatrooms, or an online gaming
site where you can talk over the game board like www.itsyourturn.com ,
thats where i've made most the online friends i've had/have.
--------
People should just be themselves and quit conforming to what society
wants.
noname
> where'd u meet him... and how'd u find the place, what did u search for?
I placed an ad on Yahoo personals and he replied to it. I think there are a
lot of sites like that out there where you can search for people in your own
zip code (or if you have an ad they can find you). Probably best to look at
more than one - I got no responses from one site and quite a few on another.
William Parker
news:Xns92183F1F9D409me...@130.133.1.4:
> I have to say though, based on my experience, it may not help much. I
> used to say back in high school that "improving my conversational
> skills" was why I spent my evenings chatting with online friends, but
> the easier it got and the more time I spent talking to people online
> the more I withdrew from the people around me IRL.
My experience is very similar here. I spent a *lot* of time on IRC last
year. I started out very self-conscious about it, and very intimidated by
the thought of text coming from a female-sounding nickname:) I got to the
point where I was for all intents not self-conscious at all. (Same thing on
this newsgroup.) I'm not sure if there has been any carry-over to real
life, and it did seem to replace the desire to have real life interractions
for me, and led to a "satisfied with it, but not really satisfied, and not
going anywhere" type of feeling.
I think now, I *am* a lot more comfortable in real life conversations than I
used to be, with men anyway. All women pretty much still terrify the living
daylights out of me in a completely irrational way.
Random chat on ICQ can be kind of fun, I've done it a few times. Even if
you're a male, women will occasionally initiate random chat with you if you
set the option to accept it. I found I was able to function just fine, but
I never had an experience where I could really relate to the person I was
chatting to.
oxidation
"TeknoVejitta" <TeknoVeji...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3ced7671$0$20...@news2.zeelandnet.nl...
> I can't even count how many 'friends' I have online, and even some
> girlfriends, but when you get from behing that computer, you're still the
> same old you.
At the moment I have no social life at all. An Internet social life is
better than none at all. Also, people at school have asked me for my
aim/icq before and they've always been surprised when I told them I didn't
have one. It seems everyone's using them these days. So maybe it will help
me get to know some acquaintances better and even make some real life
friends.
oxidation
"meg" <megme...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns92183F1F9D409me...@130.133.1.4...
> Once they're on your contact list, be sure that you initiate a few of the
> conversations rather than waiting around for them to start, to let them
> know that you're interested in talking to them.
Someone once described me as a "machine that sits around waiting to react to
things." I hate initiating conversations because I'm expected to lead the
conversation. I feel like I'm annoying the other person and they'd rather
not be talking to me, but they're just being polite. If someone else
initiates the conversation all I have to do is listen to them talk and
occasionally insert a "Yup" "You don't say?" "I see"
When I meet people in public, I still
> have nothing to say.. I draw a complete blank. Can you imagine? .. meg,
> with nothing to say!!
You're so articulate online, if only you could be irl.
> Poor you.. a summer job, or a "real" one?
Summer job.