Tag: friends

Losing someone or perhaps myself

It’s an end of an era in many ways for me. I’ve been really close to a guy for many years. I’ve never met him in RL, only online. He felt like family to me and I think he felt the same way about me.

A few weeks back, suddenly, without any warning he turned on me and said nasty things. He told me he was there for himself, not for anyone else and he couldn’t care less about our friendship. His girlfriend then blocked me on Facebook.

I have no idea what happened and why his girlfriend did what she did. We’ve never had much contact, so how could she hate me that much?

Anyway, I have to learn how to live without my “brother”. I’m not mad at him and actually miss him, but I’m not that needy, so I won’t try to contact him again. If he wants to have any contact, he must be the one to take the first step.

Another change for me is leaving Google plus. I’ve been part of that community for years ever since it started. The reason for me leaving is that I’m being totally ignored there by the Swedish community. It started with a fight I had with one of the other members. To me it seemed like a small thing, a misunderstanding, but suddenly a lot of my friends started to tell me all the things I did wrong. That something must be wrong with me etc. After that outburst from people I called my friends, they stopped interacting with me altogether. I can post things and I won’t get even a plus (like). So now I’m leaving. It breaks my heart, not only because I’ll miss some of my friends there, but mostly because I’m afraid that these things keep happening to me because there actually is something wrong with me.

To belong

I posted this message in G+. Even though it’s partly about that community, a lot of what I say is about my life and how I feel.

LEAVING – NOT LEAVING

Some of you might have seen my emotional post about leaving. I really felt what I said yesterday and it’s true that I’ve been thinking of leaving, but for different reasons.

Yesterday it was more about ‘the final straw’. I’ll tell you something about what led up to yesterdays silly post and how I feel right now.

1) Losing a friend. I met a friend years ago (2006) in Second Life. Some of you might not think a virtual friend is important, but to me it was, and I thought it was important to him too. We’ve been chatting almost every day since that time and we know more about each other than our RL friends. Now that friendship is breaking up. I know, people change, but I’ll still miss what we had. Now he claims that I don’t understand, that everything (whatever that is) is my fault and that I’m not caring enough.

2) Changes at work. We’ve gotten the indication that we’ll lose funding. And now, yesterday our boss called a meeting for Tuesday, wanting to “talk about the future”, first in a group meeting and then with each of us.  Imagine what a weekend I’ll have, worrying. I come from a very long unemployment and this is my first permanent job ever. Turns out it’s not all that permanent.

3) The final straw. Yesterday two of my “friends” here on G+ told me I was uncaring and selfish. That last one made me snap and brought back all the doubt I’ve had with G+ and that I haven’t been able to fully fit in. And that isn’t typical G+. It always comes down to that – I’m different and I don’t fit in.

All of the above made me think about leaving. Now I’m not sure. I won’t fit in better if I try somewhere else. I just have to accept that I’m different and that I’ll never fully fit in. For now, I’ll take a little break, and if I do decide to delete my account, I promise to tell you in advance.

Thank you all that showed that you cared. You make me feel less alone and sad.  Hugs!

More online communities

At one time or another I’ve been on most of the major social networks (MySpace, HI5 and Friendster). I suppose I liked MySpace the best, but in the end, I left (twice). I read somewhere that it’s a bit like coming to a major central railway station hoping to meet people. It won’t work. You’ll need to get to know them from somewhere else or get someone you know already to introduce you. That’s very true. I never made any friends, and the only contacts I really had were with people I knew from somewhere else.

Ning is a social network for – creating social networks. You get to have your own network or networks. It’s really quite cool. You get most features that you get on other social networks, but this one is all yours and you can customize it, invite the members you like etc. There’s a photo gallery feature, a chat room, a forum and a blog among other things. You can also add widgets – little mini programs that can do all kinds of things.

My favorite social networks are special interest sites. Some of them will undoubtedly be interests you don’t share, so you’ll just have to skip them.

First of all, I’m a vegan, animal lover and animal rights advocate. I’m also concerned about the environment.

One of the biggest’green’ social networks I’ve joined, is Care2. You can get a free webmail address, a photo album with unlimited storage – limited per month, send virtual e-cards that help save the rainforest, join groups (some of them are very active), sign online petitions, click to generate free donations and much more. There are also many interesting articles about all kinds of causes – the environment, politics, human rights, animal rights (they call it *welfare* and that’s one of the things I don’t like so much about it) etc. You also get a profile page you can customize. Recently, they added a sort of payment system where you can earn ‘credits’ and then use them to pay for something or other, for instance, give a cup of clean water to a Haitian child. When you’ve donated or redeemed your credits or signed a petition you can tweet it to your friends or share it some other way. Care2 makes sharing easy.

I’ve also joined several vegan and animal rights sites. Feel free to ignore this bit.

VegSpace
VeganWorld
VeganForce
Vegppl
AnimalRights Community Online

So far I haven’t made any new friends at any of these, so maybe I shouldn’t even have recommended them, but for me it’s important to be a part of the veg*an community. I like them, but they feel very much like MySpace except with a cause I can relate to. I’ve also joined several vegan dating sites. (You can specify you’re just looking for friends, if that’s what you want). I’ve actually made a few friends that way, but unfortunately, just like all other friends, online or otherwise, some have drifted away. It’s been quite a long time since I made any new friends, so maybe the sites have changed or rather the people using them. In fact, though I’m still single, I’m not really looking for dates online anymore. In any case, these are the ones I’ve tried:

VeggieConnection
VeggieDate.org
VeganPassions (there are many other passions sites – for just about any interest you might have) and you don’t have to look for a partner, just friends will do.

Since i’m an animal lover, I’m also a member of several sites for animal lovers.

Petster
Dogster
Catster
Bunspace

You get to upload photos, fill out a profile page, mainly for your baby, but also for yourself – on Petster. On Catster and Dogster there are also plenty of articles about cats or dogs and groups with forums for people who love the same type of animals you do.