why is it so hard to make long-lasting connections though?
as today's digital age takes over our lives, in more negative ways than positive, i'm forced to be a little introspective here.
if you're not making worthwhile connections at your job, or an after-work activity like gym/sports or a class, then you're forced to make connections online. discord is that place for most people. the flow usually goes like this: talk in a community server of some sort, add someone as a friend, talk a little bit until the private messages fizzle and die their inevitable death. at first, i believed i was the issue, as this was somewhat commonplace no matter how hard i tried to keep conversations ongoing. however, after talking to some friends, it seems to be the same for them too.
do people even want to make friends anymore? do they just say that they want to, but they're just trying to get a fix of some kind of positive and new emotion before they settle back into their routine? these days, i prefer to just get to know people at surface level, because it always ends up the same way when you try to forge a deeper and more formidable connection with them.
i don't know if something has inherently changed within our society for us to become like this, or if it's just the changing of the tides. i remember back in the day when i would use IRC heavily, as well as online forums. i'd meet people and private message them on those platforms, perhaps move to an instant messenger (MSN/ICQ/AIM?), and we'd become real friends. we'd talk for years and eventually meet in real life. the crazy thing is these friendships would span countries worldwide and i'd still end up meeting these people.
maybe this is just my view on how online discourse has become in general. perhaps people like the dopamine hit of the potential opportunity of meeting someone new and exciting.
i'm incredibly thankful for the friendships i have been able to maintain to this day. to those who have been around for the long haul — a sincere thank you for sticking around this long.
i guess i'm not really helping the fact either by just writing a negative rant about it all. i dunno. i guess it's a mix of rose-coloured glasses and nostalgia, but i feel things have changed for the worse. or maybe i've just become cynical. maybe both? ah, well.
p.s. yeah i did use a fucking em dash, fuck your AI bullshit, i can use those too.
now playing:
fairweather - young.brash.hopeful.
