I had a writing block for two weeks ya'll and I thought about it and panicked and worried about it and felt like had nothing of interest to say. The more I stayed away from blogville tennessee, the harder it felt to go back- I think it is may a case of e.g. running: if you dont exercise go for two weeks, you will suffer on your first day back at it.
It is kind of good I did not go on internet for two weeks as I felt my brain was going crazy/imploding and I was being mean and angry to people. I felt depressed about 'things' but I turned a new leaf for first time in about 4 months on thursday. I usually note things down everyday- things that inspire me/ things I want to ask you guys/ topics of convo etc. But for days and days and then weeks and weeks, I started to feel like nothing was fun or exciting anymore and that nothing was worth anything, void of inspiration. I wanted to shut up. I wanted my brain to shut up. And so it did.
Sometimes it is hard when you have wanted something for a very long time. Success can eat you alive and also lift you high. I have not tasted the kind of success that I crave yet but I suppose I am on 'this road' and have found I have had to make some significant decisions the past 2 months that have made me question who I want to be/ How I want to live my life/ What kind of message I want to give out. I have been a Moaning Minnie in some blog posts. Sometimes I cringe and wish I had never written them. I cringe to think I may have been exposed as weak/ low self esteem/ lacking in self belief when in reality I can take quite a lot of bullshit and I believe in my abilities to the bitter end. I guess the internets became my 'friend' as I could confide and reveal everything that was in my head without getting tongue-tied and being embarrassed/ experiencing social discomfort.
This brings me onto my topic of the day: Internet dating.
It is a tricky subject as even if any of you have done it, nobody will admit to doing it. Internet dating is preserved for freaks & loser only, right? People seem really prejudiced about the topic but it seems a more logical/ admirable way of meeting 'compatible' people for friendship/ otherwise at times than snorting some kind of horse tranquilizer in a ''kool lundun hangout''/ translation: Shyte-hole of the East.
In the beginning, in 1997, we all knew that it was only geeks/ socially inept/ divorced + old people who went on 'AOL Chat Roomz' to find 'the love of their lives'. The idea of finding someone on the internet was slightly exotic but also creepy. But as the internet grew, so did Internet dating. Last year, I noticed a slew of adverts all over London Underground Transport about ''Match.com'' and other such sites. Around that time, I remember being in a vintage store in Brick Lane where I heard two middle aged ladies talking about some dating site where the men and women asked each other if they were 'homeowners' before agreeing to go on a date. How she had gone on a date with some idiot (sounded like he was gay tbh) who made her feel even more desperate about her singleton status. Are we all a bit work- money -success mad nowadays? Do women and men really have no time to meet anymore? What followed were statistics in newspapers about ''lonely londoners'' about how women were choosing careers over men and babies and had no time to find hot dudes and how apparently 30% of londoners used dating sites. Higher percentage than I would've thought.
I can see the pros . I have seen the pros. It is hard enough to find one person you can 'love' in the whole of the UK, let alone London. I have only had 3 boyfs in 8 years so I am no expert but I have never found someone special 'normally' in a pub/ club / 'socialising hot spots' in London.
When Myspace and Facebook came along, it started to become slightly more acceptable to get to know people in this way. I met one of my now best friends on Myspace. I think he is a bit embarrassed about the way we met but I am not. I remember telling everyone in such an excited way, as if this was the new way of making friends- assuming Myspace was a gold mine of compatible people, just waiting out there to befriend you (LOL- WAKE UP, MARINA).
He changed everything and my life quite literally did a U-turn through knowing him. So Internet dating suddenly got opened up to hot people and was not just cornered off for freaks anymore and thanks to Myspace, 1 million emo guys + girls got it on, judgement-free, between 2004-2008 - R.I.P Myspace.
Makes me wonder, yall. All these social networking sites.. are they ruining our friendships or opening up a new world where we can find people with similar interests much more easily? What is this culture of self-obsession-Twitter-status-thingy leading to? A life lived out on the internet? Cause that is totally possible.. all you need is to have your groceries delivered to your door each week (go tesco.com to order). I dont even like Twatter but I have an account- I deleted the first one because I decided Twitter was bad for friendships/ the human race, only to cave and set up 'The Diamonds Club'' 2 weeks later. Now I can't delete the second one cause A) I will look like an unhinged moron B) It is now (correctly) considered a 'work tool' in the music industry. I am stuck with Twitter- I don't not like it but I don't actually like it. I don't know what to do. Seems like one more thing to worry about. Maybe life is full of those. Myspace dies, FaceyB is dying and Twitter is ruling now.
Wonder whether we will all bother going out for 'a coffee and a chat' in 30 yrs or have an emotional need for relationships past our husband/wife? Why bother when you can see what all your friends are doing every min of the day, what a great night they're having, how in love they, who did what 'crazy' thing at a partay?
To drive my point home, my best friend saw sites like Myspace as 'a filter'. You could tell whether you would get on with someone a lot more quickly through e-mails/ music tastes etc.
What do you think yall?
-What is your fave way to meet people?
-Do you use the internet for more than 2+ hours a day to 'keep in touch' with people?
-Is this weird/ unatural? Is just how our generation is evolving?
- Have you met someone on the internet before- boy or girl, friendly or otherwise?
- If not, would you?
Would love to know your thoughts.
28 comments:
Hey Marina..
I think you're pretty much right - relationships have moved online. I've met some pretty good friends through 'Net - Twitter included (I've just moved to a new city and Twitter has has helped me find people to drink with quickly, so it's good in my book!) I even know of a few people who have met the love of the lives (at least so far!) on the Internet, though admittedly, through chat rather than dating sites...
Still, until they invent the Internet Beer Protocol, we're going to have to meet face-to-face once in a while - the Net just makes arranging to do that easier!
Have fun!
h8 socializing face2face.
hmmmm,
okay i think the internet is more of a fantasy world tbh, maybe this means im still living in the past yet i would be classified in the 'on-line socialising' era. Eventually we are going to be going outside with computers tied to ourselves, well we kinda do with our laptops and mobiles now :(, and eventually we will have virtual outside believe me ;). i think going out and seeing someone face to face is so much more what dating is about, because that's the i suppose natural process without trying to sound ignorant, i mean i know on-line dating can work that's how my mum bet her boyfriend. I suppose when you meet in a club/ pub etc. you see what your getting ;). But this whole the internet is for paedophiles and weirdos crap is bullshit because you can just easily walk into a club and get off with a paedophile and weirdo and just not know i yet ;)
p.s. neon gold are funny :)
i've met lots of people off the net, and use it to keep in touch with REAL LIFE people too. its great for finding people with similar interests. but sometimes .... a bit weird.
I've made plenty of online friends through shared interests on blogging websites and these relationships have progressed to meeting in real life as well.
Living in London and being away from friends and family in Wales I find it so hard to keep on track with what my friends are doing, even though I can text and even use snail mail, facebook gives me the information without asking for it. It sounds very creepy putting it like that, but when you're homesick for your familiars it helps to see that they are happy and what they are doing.
Although that being said it can be very scary. Especially the kind of people who talk about what you said on facebook/twitter/myspace by saying "oh i hear you've had this.." It's like, don't pretend you've heard this on the grapevine.. you've read it on my facebook dumbass.
I think as long as you're sensible with what information you share social networking is a good tool.
x
i think its good but i prefer face to face/eyes to eyes. "
:) and lol" does not compare to the real thing. i like to know what kind of laugh a person has, and how loud it actually is. sometimes "lol" for 1 person can mean a quick smile. sometimes it can mean a loud 10 second laugh with the person moving around.
an emotional connection thru text can be dangerous. ive read some books on body language. its extremely interesting. text is so 1 dimensional, your brain invents the other 2 dimensions.
ive had good and bad experiences but i know what works now and what to avoid. ive stayed with myspace friends in america and the uk, but as holidays not for romance. stayed in bournemouth last weekend with a visual artist. had a very nice time. met her last year, we started talking on myspace. she did some gigs with some people i know.
Been online since 1995, about half of my life. Started hitting forums, talking to people and making those weird transient almost-friends you make online about 1998. Got into the whole nascent bootleg/mashup scene in 2002 and in 2003 Boomselection ran a club night as part of Manchester In The City, which was the first time I'd met anyone from online (also the first time the guys who ran the website had ever met in person - I got the first picture). Now THAT was weird. How do you introduce yourself when you deliberately use a pseudonym online to retain your anonymity? Spent the evening saying "Hi, I'm Seej," and feeling rather odd about it. Now, far more people know me as Seej (or Seej Engine, or Seej 500) than anything else. Hell, I make a couple of pages of google results with that name, but my IRL name scores zero hits. I spend hours and hours a week online, and I'm perfectly comfortable now meeting people I've previously only know through avatars, plus all my IRL friends have finally embraced at least one of Facebook/Twitter/MySpace (though none are on all of them like me) so I feel like the distinction between online and offline has entirely blurred.
Despite how thoroughly I've embraced technology though, and despite a couple of my friends having met and hooked up through a dating website and being a lovely couple, I still wouldn't do internet dating. What if the other person is lying about themselves (which is definitely what I'd do if I was 90 years old or had a conjoined twin or something)? Besides, the thrill is in the chase; the tangibility of meeting a stranger, getting up the courage to say something, adrenaline pumping, having to think on your feet and keep the conversation flowing, listening to your instincts reading their body-language clusters, wondering how to escalate things. It's exciting (oh, and bookshops are way better places to pull than nightclubs...)
That visceral human experience beats the hell out of any extreme sport, any thrill-ride, any other surprise, and it just isn't matched in the slightest by the phrase "Wanna cyber?"
I <3 you guys.
Face2face is always better. NeonGoldRex is just a freak yall.
asl please?
52/ M/ slough
g2g
I've met several people after getting to know them online, and most of them turn out to be exactly how they come across. I see no downside to using the internet as a jumping-off point. Obviously if you want to date, the face-to-face is going to make or break how that proceeds, but I think there's something quite cool about getting to know people solely through their words, and it's easier to share deeper thoughts thanks to less pressure. It's an incomplete picture, but then so is just knowing someone in person. I know that a lot of people who only know me in person don't even get close to a full picture of who I am, since I find it really hard to just open up. It takes a lot of contact in person before I develop that level of comfort, but online the process is almost instantaneous. The internet's good for me, but I can see how it wouldn't be good for a lot of others. Just look at how illiterate most people come across in their online profiles, yet a lot of them probably represent themselves very well in person. So yeah, I don't know about either face-to-face or online being a better way to discover people. I think they're just different angles of view, and it can help or hurt depending on the person.
When I hear the phrase "internet dating" Frankie Boyle's comment keeps popping in my head ... "Having a Pet is just basically saying I have tried to find love amongst my own species and failed" Ive no idea why, its somehow become inexorably linked in my subconscious. Ive made many good friends online and only two have tried to slip Rohypnol into my cocoa. ;) Good luck at Glasto. Whens the album out ?
I've met people that I feel more loyal and connected to on-line than most I've met in person. I think what the internet did for me was show me that though there's distance between us, there are people like me out there, that I am not alone. And considering I don't drink, and therefore the bar scene doesn't work for me, I've also found it a successful way to meet men. I've been dating my boyfriend for 3 years now, and though we initially met online, we were going to the same university at the time, so it was mostly just a way of meeting someone I never would have known otherwise, and now I have a great relationship. But yeah, we're still embarrassed to say how we met. We just say "coffee shop" because that is where we first met in person.
I guess the problem with online dating is that people (logically) look for friends with similar interests. But it's the people with completely different interests/world views that can influence, excite and frustrate you much much more. If I met a girl who's just like me, what are we supposed to do: play videogames?
Dates I've gone on with people from the internets have been more or less as disastrous as one's with people I've met IRL. :(
However, I totally agree with Anne that it's reassuring to discover "that though there's distance between us, there are people like me out there, that I am not alone." It's nice to know that there are places in the world I've never been to where I could turn up and find a friendly face, or at least cyberface.
It's a pity there's such a stigma attached to meeting people online though but hopefully this will gradually lessen.
I think the internet is a great place to meet people with similar interests, but like Jelmer said, sometimes it's the people with different interests to yours that you end up being closer with as they can teach you so much - this is probably more true in relationships than in friendships, so I think that the internet is probably better for just making friends.
I've met a few people that i've made friends with online, and that initial meet-up is a really strange experience, because you know so much about that person and vice versa, yet you have no idea what they are actually like IRL. For me, it was almost like meeting a new person, but even more awkward because they already have a perception of you, and what if you don't meet up to that perception?
And sites like FB/MySpace/Twitter are brilliant for nosey people, haha! They tell you everything you want to know about your friends - including stuff that you maybe wouldn't ask. So in that respect, it probably is a bit unnatural.
What if we get so used to twittertalk, that we start actually communicating like that with our friends in conversation?
"Louise loves Marina and the Diamonds new EP."
..that would be weird.
ROFL.
I think that though it may have originally been fantastic for socially inept people to use to make friends, it is now having the adverse effect of making people socially inept.
I find it somewhat difficult to speak to some people about their lives, when they broadcast it to everybody anyway thus therefore limiting conversation topics. I could pretend I didn't know and then trip up by saying something which popped up on my fb feed which was actually a conversation between the person i'm conversing with someone and another totally different person. Some people, after such incidents, will look at you as if you shot their cat.
I very much dislike the new FB. I am now bombarded with two-way conversations on my feed which I have no interest in and nor should I. It is a backward step imo.
Similarly I am somewhat put off by peoples' parents now getting into FB. I for instance would be expected to add my mum on fb but would certainly not like her to see what i'm doing at uni...when she thinks i'm studying...
oh as a side note, you can find "casual" relationships on gumtree, think it's listed with the other bikes.
ive decided to stay in forever and die :)
Matt- that's exactly it. Fb and twitter etc actually perpetuate social ineptitude. (i think). what is there to talk about if you know everyone's lives every min of day. Even more awkward-arama.
Louise- LOL.
Anne- hearts.
I've met a few girls through the internerd and I think it's lost a lot of its stigma. About 8 years ago, if I told anyone how I'd met my then girlfriend, they looked at me like I was some kind of freak. However, since I met my fiancée about three years ago, I'm able to say I met her through OKCupid without feeling embarrassed. It seems a lot less weird. Obviously I'm in favour of it as I found the girl I love that way.
- Matt (not Matt)
I seem to recall a Zane Lowe interview with Morrissey where Morrissey was saying that we are more connected than ever but we are also lonlier than ever. Of course, Morrissey probably wills loneliness on the population. It's good for his sales. But I think he's right.
I think internet culture has made us more superficial. I feel like many people are afraid to share anything real. They want to be friends only up to the point that real emotion is involved. If you have an argument of some sort, they shut down. People just don't want to process something that is uncomfortable. They just shut down.
The inherent narcissicsm of the internet makes everyone look out only for him/herself. Nobody can be bothered anymore. If something is inconvenient or unpleasant, they just disengage.
The other issue I find is that there is much more output than intake. Everyone is brodcasting, no one is listening. No one even wants you to listen. They just want you to brodcast back.
That said, I still use all the social networks because otherwise I would probably not be able to handle life. In real life, I am shy and don't interact well with people which results in not having a rewarding "real" social life. So I cling to the internet to give me the social interaction necessary to prevent me from jumping off a cliff. Actually, I generally find that people like internet me more than actual me. I have more respect on certain message boards than I do anywhere in real life. It's disturbing because it basically means I have a good heart/mind but that my personality is terrible.
<3 internet, h8 internet
Oh Ryan, my love! Don't your mind and heart make up a large part of your personality?
Perhaps single out the things you like about online life and the things you fear about 'real' life?
Not that I can talk. Anyway, I like the post. The quote " Everyone is broadcasting, no one is listening" sums it all up.
Perhaps "personality" is not the right word. It's not so much that I have a terrible personality as terrible face-to-face interaction skills. Some people are dead behind the eyes but are smooth talkers. I am the opposite.
Martin Heiddegger wrote an essay on technology and existence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology
A professor of mine once lectured on the topic and started talking about how no one is really out on the street anymore; everyone is in their own little world (especially when listening to iPods).
I think facebook is good and bad for friendship, I have some friends who i used to see a lot more before facebook but now it's just easy to chat online and they're is less of an urge or need to go and meet up. I think also these sites will make the next generation a lot more self-obsessed and lack people skills (perhaps?)
Having said that, I was at the roundhouse tonight (you were brilliant!) and if it wasn't for social-sites like Myspace there would be no way for me to ask you out for a non-virtual/offline coffee!
.. even if the answers no, god bless Myspace, bringing people together.
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