Delusions of another life

On Fet one does a lot of reading... not all of it for the purpose of learning. OK none of it is for the purpose of learning... just really, really nosey and on the phone for the long trip home J Sometimes one learns things by accident. One of those things is that words mean whatever you say they mean. The second is that peoples' ideas of reality have become very flexible since the advent of online communication.

There was a time on chat boards things would be prefaced with IRL, now that line seems to have become more blurred and fuzzy. People on Fet conduct huge chunks of their new relationships (before they actually meet up or moved in together) publicly via chats, journals and posts. And as a casual observer one can't help but wonder a couple of things...

The build up seems to be hot, intense and riddled with high expectations. What happens to these relationships when they move to real time? How can any relationship survive this level of intensity and slightly surreal beginning?  For that matter why would anyone want to start a relationship in this public a manner? Is this happening because we think of online friends exactly the same way as we do real life friends, and treat them the same way? If that is the case when did we start bombarding friends constantly with our thought of the moment and why would they put up with it?

The second thing that leads to more questions than answers is related to that idea that words mean whatever you think they means. The idea of calling yourself X even when you patently aren't is a prime example. Now, one can see why you would use the term in an ad or even meeting people, but to continue to call yourself something in the course of your communications seems to be deliberate obfuscation of the truth. Particularly when it appears that most of the experience in X that Y has is theoretical in nature or worse slightly fantastical.

This again leaves one to wonder some things...

Is this because the nature of reality on boards is so fuzzy that people go oh what the hell... we don't believe half of what people say anyway. Does this come about because people don't really need to believe in order to follow? Do people not actually need any experience in X to be called it and to be followed as some sort of a guru? Or are people so lonely that the endless chatter helps fill their lives and they don't bother to consider the source?

See one suspects part of the problem is that as a person one is just too literal and not much of a follower by nature. Most of this stuff is just nonsensical. In fact there has been more than the odd occasion that one has found oneself muttering use some critical thinking skills... and then wondering if we have lost those too. Sighs less and less of this stuff makes any sense as time goes on L