The Back of the SP Milk Carton

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I'm curious in general - what is it that makes people leave internet forums, particularly in those cases where the member has been in good standing for a long while, and even moreso when they leave without a trace? (The WoW explanation is actually depressingly convincing ... I've heard it offered numerous times, and apparently it really is true that people who become obsessed with WoW have literally no time for anything else. But not everyone who leaves internet forums plays WoW.)

I find it bizarre that people who go to such lengths to establish themselves in a community, albeit a 'virtual' one, sometimes just toss it all aside as if it meant nothing whatsoever. Leaving out any sentimentality for the moment (e.g., questions of loyalty, friendship, etc.), it seems a wasted investment of time and energy.

I find the explanations related to being "busy" not particularly credible: I know that having a kid or two can be extemely time-consuming, but is it really so time-consuming that it eliminates any possibility for socialization? Have these parents severed all ties with all their friends everywhere in order to raise their children? That explanation doesn't really wash, imo, unless your circumstances are extreme (single mother working three jobs and going to school or what have you), and oftentimes excuses like those, in and of themselves, suggest a lie at the heart of the matter anyway. For example, looking around BoM, there are several regular posters who have young children.

At any rate, the phenomenon becomes all the more egregious when you see threads like these where the 'survivors' wonder aloud about the welfare of those who have left. So the former friends don't know if the people in question are even alive or dead, but the people in question couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye? Weird.

 

I believe Rally did say goodbye on the chatroom. She did have a bit of trouble with another person in the network, so I think that might have had a hand in it as well. It happens.

 

Not that anyone noticed but I went off for a year or so about 2/3 years ago. Moved into a house with no internet I know you guys didn't miss me!

 

That still leaves a bit of social disconnect in some cases with regard to the manner of leaving (Rallymama notwithstanding - without a trace! ). I assume that most people who are a part of some RL social environment don't just leave one day, never to return and without any explanation. And yet people do that on the internet all the time.

I suspect that many view their internet friendships as disposbale, but I wonder why.

 

Awwwwww, I feel special

 

We had a party and everything

j/k

But if I remember rightly, people commented on your absence and at first it was presumed because of arguments in the chat rooms. Takara later clarified that you had moved house. After a while I guess people presumed you'd moved on.

 

When you are well and truly hooked on WoW you have no time or interest in any other computer related activity. When you are on your cmoputer you are in WoW. It offers everything any other computer activity offers and more. During my deepest addiction I also left this board for, what? Two years or so more or less. Not entirely but only posting once or twice a month. Doubt anyone noticed.

 

I learned a very important lesson with the last MMORPG I played, a little game called Everquest. The lesson: don't play MMORPGs!

The game utterly consumed me for a couple of years, while I was single and living in my own place (with no one to tell me that spending an ENTIRE weekend playing was going overboard). Then I got married. Next my wife became pregnant, and occasionally needed me to take care of her. Somehow the "I can't help you, I'm in the middle of a dungeon" excuse was quickly losing its charm. In interest of keeping my marriage healthy, I quit the game and vowed that a pause button would be a requirement for any future game I played. 7-8 years later I still hold to that rule.

But yeah, it's very easy to get so wrapped up in your little MMO world, with all of your MMO friends that you can lose sight of your RL relationships. Internet relationships...? Without so much as a thought.

 

I have never played WoW, largely for this reason. I already know I'm a game addict, and that might take me over the edge. With a wife and a child, I need games where I can limit my playing to about one hour per day.

 

That was the reason I didnt start any mmo until WoW but a friend convinced me to give it a go and despite more or less giving two full years of my life to the game and still play it for an hour or so per day I do not regret. True, I didnt have anything to lose but nor did I gain anything at all while I was in my deepest addiction. Except fun, I got countless hours of some of the most fun I have ever had. Highs and lows, glory and shame, ecstasy and despair and all from a computer game. I gave two years of my life to a computer game but even with hindsight I do not think I wasted them.

 

In my case, not true. I didn't knew ya back then, dear.

 

I think a lot of people don't say goodbye, because they never have an intention of leaving, it's just something that happens. In online communities, you just start posting and visiting less and less and eventually you stop visiting at all, only to realize a while later that you don't visit that place anymore. You didn't plan on leaving, but you just slowly lose interest in that place, because your own interests change or why you came to that community in the first place is now gone in the community itself (or both). If you do decide it drop by again, it just seems silly to post a goodbye. It really isn't that much different from some RL places when you think about it. Imagine a pub where you hang out frequently; in a while you get to know the bartenders a bit and the other regulars, but after a while you visit less and eventually stop visiting, perhaps because the people you hang out with also visit that place less. You also don't say goodbye and announce your departure, it's just a decline that happens naturally.

 

Yeah, the pub is a good anology. I hadn't really thought of that. Still, it suggests that the people there and on internet forums are really nothing more than acquaintances. If you made a close friend at the pub, you probably would say goodbye if you never intended to come back.

 

I would argue that that's exactly what they are, if that. I mean, really - how well do any of us know each other? Hell, we don't even use our real names. The personality that we choose to display online may not necessarily be our "true" personality (whether intentional or not). It would be very easy to come across as being completely different from what we're like in real life (again, intentionally or not); this is tougher (although not impossible) to do in person.

Take me, for example. Based on my posts here, most people would probably have no idea that I am not, in fact, almost brain dead.

 

I agree that the environment of an internet forum generally limits the interpersonal contact to that of an acquaintance level, unless you go way beyond and spend tons of time in chat rooms and that kind of thing. Still, as you say, as long as the barrier of the internet is between two people, there's really no way of knowing if the person on the other side is the genuine article.

But then the next question becomes, why do people spend so much time associating with others who are nothing more than acquaintances?

I don't mean any of this to come off as particularly critical of anyone here or elsewhere on the net, I just find it kind of interesting.

 

Well, I never saw my relationship with people I met on forums as anything beyond the acquaintance level, so that's why I made the comparison with the pub pretty easily. So why do we spend our time with acquaintances? It's easy, because the game is on. When you go to the pub to watch the game, you just want to share one of your interests with a bunch of like minded people. You might bounce some comments about the game of some people you barely know and have a small conversation while sharing a drink, but it isn't anything more than that. Same goes for internet forums I think, you might get to know some people a bit better than others, but I can't say that I've ever made friends with people who I'd hang out with outside our common ground, same goes for the pub-goers, they're cool to hang and socialize a bit with inside the pub, but nothing more than that. Now if you made a really good friend in the pub, chances are you see each other outside of the pub, so the pub isn't the (only) common ground anymore.

Ok, I might know three or four people here through the years who I'd consider having a conversation and a beer with outside of this place, but the majority are just on vague acquaintance level.


And Splunge, I was more shocked when you mentioned you didn't have a beard in real life. So shocked even that that seemingly useless fact (well, for me at least ) has stuck by me all this time.

 

While both friends and acquaintances come and go -- be it them turning their back on me or vice versa -- there's something about this place that keeps me here.

And as for my part, there are a couple of people here I'd chill out with, definitively.