the closest thing to perfect (but the farthest thing from me)
Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikaWarning: Rant. The thoughts and feelings contained herein have been building up for awhile. Don't assume this is in reaction to anything I've linked to here. It's more a reaction to ... everything.
There's something dreadful about online relationships.
We all know there's something dreadful about online relationships. I might try to deny it, but the truth is that there's something dreadful about online relationships. And it's not the first thing that comes to people's minds, either. It isn't that you can't touch the person, it isn't whether you can't find out that the person is real, it isn't that you can't kiss the person or have sex with them, and it isn't that you can't wake up with the person and go to sleep with the person.
The truly dreadful thing about online relationships is the way anyone who matters to you is probably going to assume that you're crazy for being in one.
I wake up in the morning, (heh, or whenever, which is probably not morning, come to think of it), and I read this. I read this. And I look at my silly little trillian icon in the corner of my screen, and I wonder whether clicking the two little globes to connect to the rest of the world (and England, especially) is even worth it.
So I check my e'mail and I find this. And I cry. I cry, not necessarily tears, but my heart sighs, my brain boggles because there are still so many people out there who don't get it.
And I can't understand why I even bother to try to explain this to friends who don't understand that I need their support. Some of the truest friends I have have tried to set me straight about all of this, and broke my heart in the process. (And ironically enough, they're usually online friends.) (Hey, Alanis, I used the word ironically correctly! Do I get a cookie?)
And you know what? You guys really do seem so right. I see ideas like "settle for words on a screen", thoughts like "impossible to trust anyone online". "Why should people I've never met affect my feelings?" "You can't know that you love someone if you've never met them." It's hopeful but, somehow, depressingly so when he says "Jenna was a hoax, and yes, Kaycee was a hoax too" and yet "I'll continue to trust people online, because the alternative is far worse".
But still, no, I don't think you're right, but I couldn't tell you why. I've tried over and over again to explain this, and yet everyone keeps offering me the same tidbits in return, the same dull repartee that seems to explain everything in their eyes.
Yes, it's utterly awful to not be able to touch the people that you love. To offer *hugs* and not wrap your arms around the boy, snuggle your nose into his collarbone, into that perfect spot that smells of soap and boy, to giggle and pull him into the bed with you.
Yes, it's utterly depressing to realize that the only way I'm going to be able to do any of that is if we expend huge amounts of money, and the fact that I can't get a fucking job, no matter that I've been trying so damn hard... no, that doesn't help either.
No, I don't enjoy the fact that every moment we talk is another £.03 out of his pocket, or another $.10 out of mine. That we can only communicate via phone or text boxes that flash on my taskbar, honk in my ear until I get annoyed (so easily irritated, me) and click, click, click: play sounds turned off.
But you know what really doesn't help?
(The way that I'm scared to tell my mother that we need to go get me a new passport, because I'm going to England, damnit, and have her look at me and wonder if I've hooked up with an axe murderer.)
The way I have to explain this anew, every day, to people who think that because I am currently in an online relationship, I'm naïve enough to think that everything will be okay, I'm dumb enough to be stupidly optimistic and just blindly trust that things will all work out. To people to whom the word "love" could never, ever, ever come from a long distance relationship, and well, if YOU think so, well, I'm gonna pretend to be a good friend and hope it works out, but damnit, you didn't seem stupid, and you really should know better.
And you think I don't know how much online relationships suck? How much they just FLAT OUT suck? How much the distance interferes with your sanity (haha, yes, saveyoursanity, I got the joke before anyone, 'kay?), how much the miles or kilometres or whatever come between you until you want to rip out your hair, until you want to cry, until you want to leave the house and start walking, damnit, except... except there's still an ocean between you. Except, except you know you have to go back, angrily click on the computer, watch the blinkenlights and the text scroll, the happy little progress bars and then roughly tap out "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." Because my friends' thoughts and feelings matter to me, damnit, no matter how they're transmitted.
I read Control Revolution, by Andrew L. Shapiro, about the evolution of the Internet, and how we're soon going to have complete control over this medium which has become a major part of our lives. And one phrase he used to describe this place of cyberspace sticks in my mind, and I'd like to share that phrase with you now: "Lens."
The Internet is not an Elsewhere, to be protected. It is an Everywhere. The Internet has become the lens through which we view the world.
The world, increasingly, is a truly global world, a world where a package can be shipped anywhere for 2.50, 4 if you want to pay for an airplane. There are still packets of jungle, but they're becoming increasingly fewer and farther between. And if you take your laptop, with your cellular modem, you can still surf the web from Madagascar.
I make plans and have a deep conversation with my best friend over AIM and twenty minutes later she comes over and picks me up and we watch some fluffy movie. Which interaction has more value?
There are people that live in my town, whom I only know through livejournal. There are people around the world, whom I only know through livejournal. What's the difference? One requires a five minute walk, the other -- a 15 hour plane ride. Well, I'm sorry, but the likelihood of me meeting either is incredibly low. I'm lazy like that.
But goddamnit, just because I have only tapped out words to these people, or laughed and joked with them on the phone, doesn't make my interactions with them any less real, and I'm tired of explaining it.
I didn't sign up to be a pioneer or a iconoclast. I don't want to have to battle some stereotype created by Hollywood and the general public's view of the Internet as some magical miasmic mist created and populated solely by hackers who drink Jolt and never eat anything that can't be microwaved.
Maybe I'm just hoping the day will come when I say, with actual pride, "I met Joe through the Internet" and that doesn't automagically translate in everyone's minds to "I am a horny, ugly loser who can't get a date in real life".
Two people fell in love one day. Does it matter how?
There's something dreadful about online relationships.
We all know there's something dreadful about online relationships. I might try to deny it, but the truth is that there's something dreadful about online relationships. And it's not the first thing that comes to people's minds, either. It isn't that you can't touch the person, it isn't whether you can't find out that the person is real, it isn't that you can't kiss the person or have sex with them, and it isn't that you can't wake up with the person and go to sleep with the person.
The truly dreadful thing about online relationships is the way anyone who matters to you is probably going to assume that you're crazy for being in one.
I wake up in the morning, (heh, or whenever, which is probably not morning, come to think of it), and I read this. I read this. And I look at my silly little trillian icon in the corner of my screen, and I wonder whether clicking the two little globes to connect to the rest of the world (and England, especially) is even worth it.
So I check my e'mail and I find this. And I cry. I cry, not necessarily tears, but my heart sighs, my brain boggles because there are still so many people out there who don't get it.
And I can't understand why I even bother to try to explain this to friends who don't understand that I need their support. Some of the truest friends I have have tried to set me straight about all of this, and broke my heart in the process. (And ironically enough, they're usually online friends.) (Hey, Alanis, I used the word ironically correctly! Do I get a cookie?)
And you know what? You guys really do seem so right. I see ideas like "settle for words on a screen", thoughts like "impossible to trust anyone online". "Why should people I've never met affect my feelings?" "You can't know that you love someone if you've never met them." It's hopeful but, somehow, depressingly so when he says "Jenna was a hoax, and yes, Kaycee was a hoax too" and yet "I'll continue to trust people online, because the alternative is far worse".
But still, no, I don't think you're right, but I couldn't tell you why. I've tried over and over again to explain this, and yet everyone keeps offering me the same tidbits in return, the same dull repartee that seems to explain everything in their eyes.
Yes, it's utterly awful to not be able to touch the people that you love. To offer *hugs* and not wrap your arms around the boy, snuggle your nose into his collarbone, into that perfect spot that smells of soap and boy, to giggle and pull him into the bed with you.
Yes, it's utterly depressing to realize that the only way I'm going to be able to do any of that is if we expend huge amounts of money, and the fact that I can't get a fucking job, no matter that I've been trying so damn hard... no, that doesn't help either.
No, I don't enjoy the fact that every moment we talk is another £.03 out of his pocket, or another $.10 out of mine. That we can only communicate via phone or text boxes that flash on my taskbar, honk in my ear until I get annoyed (so easily irritated, me) and click, click, click: play sounds turned off.
But you know what really doesn't help?
(The way that I'm scared to tell my mother that we need to go get me a new passport, because I'm going to England, damnit, and have her look at me and wonder if I've hooked up with an axe murderer.)
The way I have to explain this anew, every day, to people who think that because I am currently in an online relationship, I'm naïve enough to think that everything will be okay, I'm dumb enough to be stupidly optimistic and just blindly trust that things will all work out. To people to whom the word "love" could never, ever, ever come from a long distance relationship, and well, if YOU think so, well, I'm gonna pretend to be a good friend and hope it works out, but damnit, you didn't seem stupid, and you really should know better.
And you think I don't know how much online relationships suck? How much they just FLAT OUT suck? How much the distance interferes with your sanity (haha, yes, saveyoursanity, I got the joke before anyone, 'kay?), how much the miles or kilometres or whatever come between you until you want to rip out your hair, until you want to cry, until you want to leave the house and start walking, damnit, except... except there's still an ocean between you. Except, except you know you have to go back, angrily click on the computer, watch the blinkenlights and the text scroll, the happy little progress bars and then roughly tap out "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." Because my friends' thoughts and feelings matter to me, damnit, no matter how they're transmitted.
I read Control Revolution, by Andrew L. Shapiro, about the evolution of the Internet, and how we're soon going to have complete control over this medium which has become a major part of our lives. And one phrase he used to describe this place of cyberspace sticks in my mind, and I'd like to share that phrase with you now: "Lens."
The Internet is not an Elsewhere, to be protected. It is an Everywhere. The Internet has become the lens through which we view the world.
The world, increasingly, is a truly global world, a world where a package can be shipped anywhere for 2.50, 4 if you want to pay for an airplane. There are still packets of jungle, but they're becoming increasingly fewer and farther between. And if you take your laptop, with your cellular modem, you can still surf the web from Madagascar.
I make plans and have a deep conversation with my best friend over AIM and twenty minutes later she comes over and picks me up and we watch some fluffy movie. Which interaction has more value?
There are people that live in my town, whom I only know through livejournal. There are people around the world, whom I only know through livejournal. What's the difference? One requires a five minute walk, the other -- a 15 hour plane ride. Well, I'm sorry, but the likelihood of me meeting either is incredibly low. I'm lazy like that.
But goddamnit, just because I have only tapped out words to these people, or laughed and joked with them on the phone, doesn't make my interactions with them any less real, and I'm tired of explaining it.
I didn't sign up to be a pioneer or a iconoclast. I don't want to have to battle some stereotype created by Hollywood and the general public's view of the Internet as some magical miasmic mist created and populated solely by hackers who drink Jolt and never eat anything that can't be microwaved.
Maybe I'm just hoping the day will come when I say, with actual pride, "I met Joe through the Internet" and that doesn't automagically translate in everyone's minds to "I am a horny, ugly loser who can't get a date in real life".
Two people fell in love one day. Does it matter how?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:04 am (UTC)Second, I think we've talked about this... let me start with this question though... do you love Joe? Then WHO CARESSS what your friends think? No one knows your feelings better than you do. No one can say you're nuts, no one has the right to call you weird. If you've been lucky enough to find something some people look for all their lives, then ignore the snide comments... the giggles, everything. I have. And I've made him as much a part of my life as I can, talking to my best friend, to my mom, etc.
You'll meet him someday, Erkia, if this was something that was "meant to be" or if it's something you care enough about to fight for.
Don't ever doubt him, that's the worst thing you could ever do to yourself. (That last bit has nothing to do with your post, it's just free advice. ;D )
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:10 am (UTC)You know how strong you are?
One whole lot.
I admire you like nothing else, seriously. And I'm so glad you decided to actually use your livejournal back in February, if only for this entry, which has provided me with more food for thought than anything else for a long time.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:30 am (UTC)*smile* I have gone on for long enough, me thinks. And (being the early hour that it is), I doubt that I have made very much sense. But, I wish you luck in your relationship nonetheless -- and I most certainly do not think that you are a "horny, ugly loser who can't get a date in real life". ^_^ You rock.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:53 am (UTC)That is all.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 06:03 am (UTC)that entry is one of those things you read and when you get to end you
realise you've been feeling that all along, but just couldn't articulate it.
Or a less convoluted sentence.
I have articulation problems. I bend easily enough, but I'm useless with words.
I love that entry.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 07:25 am (UTC)Don't apologize, darling. I fear I may have offended you. What you really did was help me crystallize some of the thoughts that've been rattling around in this crazy brain of mine.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 07:42 am (UTC)good line.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 08:24 am (UTC)Come to think of it, no, it doesn't.
You've boiled it down to the essentials and scrapped away all the crazy stuff. Thank you dear. This is something I'll always remember.
Wow
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 08:31 am (UTC)life is a risk. in the end, nothing else really matter except what YOU choose and what YOU want. fly with your dreams and wishes is all I can say....
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 08:47 am (UTC)Maybe I'm just hoping the day will come when I say, with actual pride, "I met Joe through the Internet"
It's taken Darren and me so long to get to where we are now. I still can't say the above with pride, though. I shy away from telling people and isn't that awful? I wish you and Joe the best of luck. I will always believe that these are the relationships that, if successful through so much difficulty, are the strongest. You appreciate each other more. You love each other more to cover the distance. It is something to be very proud of.
It so totally works sometimes...
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 10:11 am (UTC)This morning, I watched her sleep for a while, her skin bathed in the cool grey light of dawn.
Gods, the time in between was hard in spots. We spent a summer pining for one another. We've overcome tremendous obstacles to get where we are. But in a few minutes I'm going to wake her up and I get to do that every morning for the rest of forever.
It works sometimes. Sure, it fails miserably sometimes, too. People get burned and they write about it and other people point and suddenly it looks like online relationships always lead to heartache.
Bullshit.
It's easier to conceal truths online, but it's only that: easier. And that's starting to go away, too, as our presence online becomes more real through the increasingly pervasive grasp technology has on the way we live. That guy in the bar last night - does he really have that impressive a job? That woman in the bookstore cafe - was she really single? It's not like having talked to someone face-to-face gives one any guarantee of the truth of their words.
It sounds like you certainly don't need anyone to say this to you, but...just be happy, and be strong, and don't let anyone take away your joy just because they had a bad experience.
Because wow, it works sometimes. And those times make everything worth it.
Re:
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 04:07 pm (UTC)AMEN.
I'm currently in a relationship with a really super incredible amazing guy that I met online- and I'm more in love than I ever thought I could be. I've received a fair amount of shit about it- but I believe it will work out, I really honestly do.
And I wish you the best.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:25 pm (UTC)Re: It so totally works sometimes...
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:26 pm (UTC)You know, I do use you guys for inspiration. It's like "holy shit, this CAN happen". It's amazingly cool that such wonderful people met through the Internet and everything -- seems like all I ever hear about is cyberstalkers and psycho axe murderers -- it's amazing to think that normal, every day, extraordinary people can meet here too. And you guys did -- and you're beautiful together.
no subject
on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 05:29 pm (UTC)Thank you for reminding me that I have something to be proud of. Because I do. And people tell me I'm so strong -- but it was so perfectly easy to fall in love with him, I didn't even realize I had until I started fighting against it. What's strong is to keep the relationship going, and so far we're doing a damn good job.