social dilemma

Does anyone here feel like it's harder to relate to fellow lains as they engage themselves more in real life relationships? I've recently gone through some trauma that really prompted me to go out and build relationships with people. I'd felt so isolated in meatspace for so long and I think that's what I felt connected me to lain and why I've been able to thrive in this culture. Now, however, I find that I'm too busy going out or staying in with friends and focusing on face to face activities that I find coming back to my old cyberspace holes more of a chore than entertainment. Everytime recently that I visit lainchan and other places I feel like I'm looking through an enclosure at what I used to be and how I used to think and it depresses me. This is such a unique space with a unique community and I've essentially alienated myself from it. Maybe I won't feel like that forever, but it's jarring to me in the moment because of how much I feel like a stranger in these places anymore. I don't feel like I'm lain anymore.

indeed but i think it also comes with age. like people grow older maybe closer to their 30s and new relationships become really difficult and old ones die. --.--@ the stuff that makes us feel good, needed and that makes this tribal sense is lost when being burdened with so many responsibilities. what shall we let go to be balanced and no left behind? alienation here is not true. just love lain and you are in, we are all so different and that's the only thing that connects us. that we search ways to connect with others.

>>11955 Thank you lain. I wasn't sure what kind of response to expect, but I'm glad that you seem to understand.

>>11954 I am successful at irl interactions routinely and I like it here. I haven't been on this website long but I like the people here. It's not a one or the other thing.

Social media megacorps broke people's brains. Its not just you.

I have found over time that people who -love- this place are generally fueled by isolation-based ignorance and black-box thinking. Enough contact with society breaks down the ignorance as lain realizes humans are complex and machines are still simple. Spending time in university or working a non-braindead job breaks down the black-box thinking as lain is forced to understand and use the actual contents of the boxes that were never really there. You just grew up, OP. You'll probably never fit in here again unless you end up completely alone, or in a psychosis.

>>11972 i don't know if i just didn't visit enough chans on the web, but i think lainch and arisuch are among the very-very few chans where people are "lovely". People here are not so retarded and malicious like at mainstream chans. We all love Lain, so why would we hate each other am i right? It was funny and edgy as a 14-16 years old to throw swear words at random people for nothing but it got old and now i enjoy telling nice things to people. My main point is: i don't beleive that this community is held together by our faults or failures or mistakes. I can't really tell but like "to love Lain" meaned a lot more than just loving somebody. I'm a person who is somewhat prone to isolation-based ignorance but not at all to black-box thinking.

>>11958 Agreed. I like this space because it has the comfy feel of normal friendships and conversations, and I don't quite understand how one would see them as being in opposition to each other. >>11972 A strange story. Realise that humans are complex, then come to the conclusion that the people who come here do so for the simple reason of being isolated weirdos.

I originally was drawn into lainchan because I was unable to interact socially with normal people, but I was able to interact with lains. Now that I've gotten a little bit older I have learned how to interact with normal people better, and while lainchan and other weird internet communities are no longer a refuge they are all still a big part of me. I love you guys :)

>>11976 Love you back xD

yes and the thing ive realized is an outsider is always kind of an outsider. so I dont fit in much of anywhere at all now, not here but not entirely in real life either. when you leave the internet comfort zone it starts to become clear why you entered in the first place, and it also becomes clear you dont get along well with much of anyone online or not online. Norms stop making sense in general as youve broken out of one set and into entirely new sets. There is such drastic perspective changes, and yet you arent any better for it at the end of the day and no one believes you if you say "I used to think like you do". When it first happened its so weird how I was almost like a child when it came to socializing from so long only spent talking to computer people. Its been weird watching my actual personality take shape, its way too easy to assert you like this or that or believe in this or that online and all that gets tested in real life relationships. Everything becomes a bit more gray and fuzzy. A very bold and loud personality I had online, with very clear ideas about everything, and now ive become someone whos very scared and I dont know how else to describe jt other then skittish. Addiction is a big struggle and this isnt surprising when I look how and what I enjoyed about video games. Depression has become more of a real thing (partly because it is diagnosed in me now), and the amount of anger online I used to have I can see now how that affects me while it used to be something I saw as normal or just the attitude of imageboards and what not. I often find myself in arguments here thinking, if I could just sit you down with my friend such and such you would see things so differently. its been real and its been weird. that realization of "hold on I actually have to be a part of society" shook me for quite a bit. If I make it and make it well id like to be completely open about how my youth was spent on places like this, because I feel like people here often just assume they are unsaveable or unsalvageable, on the fringes, and that they arent the sort of person who "makes it". I know 4-5 years ago when I was here I did. Id like to be able to say "Yes there I was a full on neet, no friends, no skills really, and the world didnt end and I figured it out". Its weird how the mindset of this evolved from "im gonna kill myself" to "im gonna end up a basement dweller" to "im gonna end up homeless" to "im gonna end up a drug addict" to finally a point where I dont think about that anymore I just do my best. Will I make it? Will you make it? I really dont know but maybe in another five years il get back to you.

>>12015 id also like to add while I get incredibly sad and frustrated with the people on here, on chans in general, it also saddens me to not see it being treated like a problem. I understand why of course, not here so much but especially on 4chan, the people arent easy to love or care for. But it doesnt help when they turn into just "those people online". Ive been in and out and around with therapists and psychiatrists, as well as asked to speak to certain ones, and they all have been very interested to hear about this online life I used to have, some of them actively write papers and what not, and I really hope with the things ive said they start to look into this and how to reach out and help people in that spot. Im pretty sure its not just me that for the longest time this whole online business was something you dont talk about, it didnt happen, which is so weird honestly. If I spent like 6 years of my childhood playing baseball surely id have thoughts on it, stories, things looking back I think affected me negatively and positively that id like to communicate or work through. But theres a certain shame with this one, that leads to it not being shared. And its funny because the shame only really exists, at least as heavily as it does, on the internet. When ive told friends they just want to know why, what happened that made me want to shut off and retreat into the internet like that, and I have valid reasons and im sure everyone does if they think about it enough. What they dont think is "ahaha loser you were a neet virgin", because thats a chan mentality not a (common) real life one. Live your truth as they say, and the truth was for some of you that you did in fact spend a fuarrrkload of time doing "nothing" online, and thats fine it happened. We are kind of an experimental generation if you think about it, among us being some of the first to have the internet most if not all of their early life. There was bound to be some side effects.

I certainly know what OP means. I used to be a total hikki at one point, now i atleast have irl friends. Its hard now for me to imagine the time when every day i was consumed by anxiety and depression. Now im mostly apathic towards the world. I still browse lc atleast once a day when i can and reply whenever i think its reasonable. I wouldnt say i distanced myself from lc, but i spend more time irl. Often i try not to forget what its like being totally depressed, its what shaped me and shapes many others here. Its much harder to relate to people who are sucked in depression when you are not sucked in yourself anymore, its what connected me to people here a lot. Still this place and people here are important to me and to the grander scheme of things to come.

That's amazing how so many people can interact with each other. I personally find it very difficult to establish relationships with people in real life, both here in the Wired. I am probably destined to remain alone.

I think a lot of it comes from the limited nature of words. A good 75% of communication comes from tone and body language. A real world conversation with even the stupidest man on earth is way more emotionally fulfilling than an discussion you could ever have on the web.

Hey lainchan. You guys seem like a really nice community. I wish I had been here to participate in it when it was active.

>>12247 It's quite active now, don't think you missed out. It was never like a high-speed content chan. It was almost always a slow one.

>>11972 I don't really get why you feel so. I have a pretty average normal life, friends and connections in the meatspace, but I need this feeling of here, the feeling of being connected in another level. The cyberdelic experience. Why should anyone have to be psychotic to fit in here?

>>12249 It is a story they've woven about their own personal development, disguised as observations about others.

>>12250 Could be, but even so why have such a view on yourself. I was also an edgy teenager in chans, raised in 4chan actually, even before the exodus. But the feeling of acceptance I got made me feel like "hey there are many others that feel like me, I'm not the only one or alone" so I just went on and felt better in my every day life. What I mean is all of us are not alone neither special. But this is also irrelevant.

>>12247 I feel the same. It's like I always get late to new imageboards: it took me years to get out of 4chan and then 8chan and the cycle goes on. But this >>12248 is quite a relief >>11955 I also believe this is true. A great deal of visiting imageboards is a tribal sense of belonging, and you lose that as you get more into real life relationships. But even though that's true, there's a part of your identity formed in imageboards that will never leave. The warped, twisted humor, the feeling of being outside the real world with real people; even if you return to real life you'll still feel like an outsider there. At least that's how it is for me. I think that you eventually grow a dual nature or identity. You're neither here nor there. It's quite confusing and melancholic, and it generates a weird feeling of loneliness. I hope not to sound like an emo cringelord.