I realised a few months ago that, in my current state, I am unable to have friends. (that means: online friends. What is real life?) The desire is there, the loneliness is real. But the chaotic nature of my temporary lifestyle does not give me the mental and temporal space necessary for socializing. I began to give 3 very cool, nice individuals my time, but then ended up "ghosting" them because I failed to keep up. It's hard to find cool people who live outside of the smartphone playground. I feel bad about the abandonment; worse than I ever usually do about anything because some of my only worth is derived from being social online, and to injure somebody else is morally unfair. I also have a mental scar from a few years ago when somebody did that to me.
Before my life was flip-turned upside down, back when I had reliable habits and routines, and a semblence of security, I quite enjoyed keeping up with my online presence. Message boards and chatrooms have been integral my whole life, until I had to stop abrubtly in 2023. I had some friends I would consider to be close and reliable, who I could even call on for help. Regrettably, since I have been absent for 2+ years, I have lost my network and cannot even think to ask them for the help I now need. Since 2023, each successive span of time has only increased my social limitations. I keep finding new opportunities and each time must hold myself back and remember my old abandoned friends.
With good fortune, I should be able to return to something like that some time in early 2026. Then again, that has been the mantra since 2023, "Oh it will get better soon!" but it hasn't. The only constant has been idling and waiting.
Regardless of having friends or not, I will still keep writing to myself. I have endless ramblings saved in text files. Writing is one of the only ways I feel fulfilled. I also have a person who I have traded hearts with for over a year, and she is the one exception to all of this - my one motivation and guiding light, the one thing I can look forward to.
Regardless of having friends or not, I will still keep writing to myself. I have endless ramblings saved in text files. Writing is one of the only ways I feel fulfilled. I also have a person who I have traded hearts with for over a year, and she is the one exception to all of this - my one motivation and guiding light, the one thing I can look forward to.
In related news: Digg has returned, one of the early aggregator "kitchen sink" social sites from the era before Reddit existed. It is nice for now, but is already showing it's cracks. The focus or reliance on artificial intelligence is evidence enough - that bubble has bursted but desperate losers are keeping fakesmart on life support. If the population increases significantly, it will become as unmanageable as Reddit. The limited amount of communities is the biggest strength, but I read that they plan to have custom communities. And the constant comparisons to Reddit are the writing on the wall: It has created no unique new killer-app value proposition to set itself apart, nothing new to the table. Reddit frankensteined what was left of Digg and other similar sites, and perverted it into a genetically-modified abominable mutation. To return to Digg is likely no longer possible, kind of like the exodus from Friendster and MySpace to Facebook and the continual online decline since. Nonetheless, like Google+, I will still participate in Digg for now, to see how it shakes out. Probably just as a casual thing, since for me there is little value in such transient services. I prefer long term value like message boards. Long-term value should be curated and maintained. Everything online and offline has devolved into short-term disposables, which has been abused to the point where it became the standard instead of the exception.
