Degrees of Friendship
Gordan over at We Fly Spitfires, had a lovely post about friends in MMOs, and it made real good sense…..if you weren’t me.
I don’t put friends in buckets, and define them in terms like “real” or “online”, to me it’s binary, either you are my friend or not, either you are with me, or against me. To me a friend is any who take their time to help me out. Let’s take my friend Scarybooster, I never met him, I never been to his crib, I don’t even really know his real name. (He told me once, but I drink alot) To me it doesn’t matter, he has earned my loyalty, and respect for he always helps me out, and is a man who has integrity. I try to return that to him. That’s just one example. Just because I never met someone does that mean that person is less than a friend, nope not in my book. Heck Scary’s done more for me then some of the people I know, and called friend in the past.
Sure I have friends who I spend more time with, or do activities with more, doesn’t make the rest of my friends any less of friend in my book. I wouldn’t ask a friend who doesn’t like sports to a baseball game, well I might ask, but I would know the answer. Perhaps I’m old school, perhaps I have an idealist wet dream of what friendship is, but then again maybe in this day and age we are too hung up on labels. We want to classify everything, put everything, and everyone into a convenient box.
To me when I started to travel the lanes of the internet superhighway, it seemed there was a purity that was there. I talked to people and it didn’t matter who they were, what they were, where they came from, the physical was gone. It was like my soul, talking to theirs. I know silly romanticism of technology, but that’s what I fell in love with.
Some people portray a different person on the internet, or in their games then they are in real life, not me. What you see is me, the core of me. Sometimes brash, sometimes an asshole, but I am always honest to what and who I am, and I never get to big for my britches to admit when I am wrong, and to make sure I make amends.
Bottomline, I’m not going to stop any trends, or become the leader of some movement, but I’m trying to make a point. I don’t like this thing or trend of quantifying friendship, and to me it is not a good thing. If I say I’m your friend, and that I count you among mine, you can be damn sure I mean that….
Oh also realize not everyone that hangs around me is actually my friend.
July 12, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Well said Riv.
July 12, 2011 at 4:48 pm
I was thinking of you too, but Scary wrote a new story, I want to make sure people visit it. 🙂
July 12, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Thanks again for the link love. What your readers don’t realize is, I’m going to be RPing right here next week. Gonna get my geek on
July 12, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Agreed. Even though I actually think you’re a poopyhead.
July 12, 2011 at 6:27 pm
PS why is that carebear not nekkid? I feel cheated now.
July 12, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Ahh those aren’t flowers on it’s chest, those are nipples.
July 12, 2011 at 6:26 pm
I totally agree with this.
I also only keep you around to read your dirty FB updates 😉
July 12, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Shhh Now everybodies gonna want to see those. LOL!
July 12, 2011 at 11:59 pm
If you don’t like quantifying friendships, then the terms usually used to describe the “value” of a friendship like good or best don’t apply? I think it’s only natural for friendships to be quantified by some sort of value measurement – something like Best Friend>Good Friend>Friend>Acquaintance>Stranger>Rival>Arch Nemesis.
I’d possibly take a bullet for my best friends, but I’m not sure I’d show that kind of reckless love for the buddy that I see, and sit next to, at the Saturday Night Bingo Extravaganza. 😀
July 13, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Yeah I’m just a wierdo, and I would take a bullet for that guy next to me at bingo. By the way I love how you quantify enemies too, Arch-Nemesis. LOL!
July 13, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Weelll Met!
I consider my guild friends as friends even though I’ve only met one in real life.
I find my real life friends try to qualify my “online” friends and even the friends from other jobs I worked at in the past that I don’t see as much today.