social topic

2005-10-02 06:19:59 pm

*sigh* Sorry for going halfway off topic, but I'm quite emotional right now and I feel the need to write down my thoughts, wether someone reads them or not.
So, school is over for about three months as of now and in these three months of doing mostly nothing me and my friends still had a lot of opportunities to meet, which we also did, of course. It's strange, because during the last few weeks in school you start to realize that everyone you like will start to go his/her own way and that you won't be able to spend much time together anymore. And then there is this long peroid of time before this happens and you actually start to forget about your thoughts, since things didn't seem to have changed that much. While you still see each other each week and you spend your time together doing something you like, everyone is already drifting away from each other slowly. And at the time you realize this it's already 10.02.05 11:40PM and you start writing about it in a forum where you actually don't no anybody in person.
And you think about tomorrow, the day where you will probably see some of your friend for the last time in a long while, while a song named "Von Trennung und Schmerz" by "Engelsblut" is playing that you never heard before. You feel sad, but at the same time you're looking forward for a new life. A different life where you get to know other people and where you have let go off your friends, so that they can go their own way, too. You sit there and think and suddenly you notice what day it is tommorow.
"Tag der Deutschen Einheit" - "Day of German unity"
A national holiday on which german people celebrate the reunification of east and west germany. I find it somehow ironic that this is the day, where we will meet one last time. Well, there will be some school class meetings once in a while, but these won't be the same, because everyone lives a different life then. Maybe you won't even recognize the people you once knew better than yourself. *sigh* Well, I got carried away, sorry. I just hope that tomorrow (now today in Germany) will be a nice day even if it maybe a hard day. Life goes on and there's no time to cry, because there's always something to look forward to.

*sigh* Sorry for going halfway off topic, but I'm quite emotional right now and I feel the need to write down my thoughts, wether someone reads them or not.
So, school is over for about three months as of now and in these three months of doing mostly nothing me and my friends still had a lot of opportunities to meet, which we also did, of course. It's strange, because during the last few weeks in school you start to realize that everyone you like will start to go his/her own way and that you won't be able to spend much time together anymore. And then there is this long peroid of time before this happens and you actually start to forget about your thoughts, since things didn't seem to have changed that much. While you still see each other each week and you spend your time together doing something you like, everyone is already drifting away from each other slowly. And at the time you realize this it's already 10.02.05 11:40PM and you start writing about it in a forum where you actually don't no anybody in person.
And you think about tomorrow, the day where you will probably see some of your friend for the last time in a long while, while a song named "Von Trennung und Schmerz" by "Engelsblut" is playing that you never heard before. You feel sad, but at the same time you're looking forward for a new life. A different life where you get to know  other people and where you have let go off your friends, so that they can go their own way, too. You sit there and think and suddenly you notice what day it is tommorow.
"Tag der Deutschen Einheit" - "Day of German unity"
A national holiday on which german people celebrate the reunification of east and west germany. I find it somehow ironic that this is the day, where we will meet one last time. Well, there will be some school class meetings once in a while, but these won't be the same, because everyone lives a different life then. Maybe you won't even recognize the people you once knew better than yourself. *sigh* Well, I got carried away, sorry. I just hope that tomorrow (now today in Germany) will be a nice day even if it maybe a hard day. Life goes on and there's no time to cry, because there's always something to look forward to.

Kridly

2005-10-02 06:57:00 pm

Make sure you get their phone numbers, and email, and messenger sn, and keep in touch, and plan outings together. That should help a bit.

nate

2005-10-02 06:58:22 pm

very ironic indeed ... good short story material.

it reminds me of a song by eve 6 called "here's to the night." i didn't get it at first, but apparently (according to people who saw the music video), it's supposed to be about that exact situation.

never did see the music video ...

anyway, i was just thinking earlier today that i don't have to worry about that so much, because as long as i don't meet anyone here between now and may, there won't be anyone here i'm leaving behind. i did make one or two friends in the four years i was here, but they all left last year for greener pastures, leaving me behind. so yeah, for them i guess it's already happened. i have all my good friends online, so at least i have that part stable as i move to ohio to start grad school at the end of this school year.

Frozen Mr. Toastbrot

2005-10-02 07:32:09 pm

Kridley: I already have email addresses, messenger and phone numbers of the important persons, but just "typing" with them online just isn't the same. Maybe it's just me, but I hardly ever use the internet to talk about something important with them. Because I feel that emotions get's lost. Using the phone is something different, though, because you can actually hear each other. The problem will be to reach them, though. They might not have time when I have and vice versa. Which is also a problem when planning a meeting. It was already a problem to get everyone together while we all lived in Wuppertal, but when everyone lives in different places hundreds of miles away from each other it's even harder to organize everything. I hope that it will eventually work out some day, though. One can always try :)

Nate: Believe it or not, but I also thought that it would be good material for a short story. I may even give it a try if I find the time to write something at Bundeswehr. About that song, I never heard of it, neither did I hear about the artist. Maybe I should try to find the video somewhere.

But talking about Bundeswehr and writing. One of my friends just asked if she could send me some letters there. I was pretty surprised by that question, especially because the last time I got a letter I was maybe six or seven years old and I could barely read and write. Well, I guess some of my free time will be consumed by answering her letters, then :P.

Kridley: I already have email addresses, messenger and phone numbers of the important persons, but just "typing" with them online just isn't the same. Maybe it's just me, but I hardly ever use the internet to talk about something important with them. Because I feel that emotions get's lost. Using the phone is something different, though, because you can actually hear each other. The problem will be to reach them, though. They might not have time when I have and vice versa. Which is also a problem when planning a meeting. It was already a problem to get everyone together while we all lived in Wuppertal, but when everyone lives in different places hundreds of miles away from each other it's even harder to organize everything. I hope that it will eventually work out some day, though. One can always try :)

Nate: Believe it or not, but I also thought that it would be good material for a short story. I may even give it a try if I find the time to write something at Bundeswehr. About that song, I never heard of it, neither did I hear about the artist. Maybe I should try to find the video somewhere.

But talking about Bundeswehr and writing. One of my friends just asked if she could send me some letters there. I was pretty surprised by that question, especially because the last time I got a letter I was maybe six or seven years old and I could barely read and write. Well, I guess some of my free time will be consumed by answering her letters, then :P.

bartendorsparky

2005-10-02 07:42:12 pm

always move fast

the very same thing happened to me over the summer, only with a friend having the apparant urge to move hundreds (thousands?) of miles away. Now, had this just been a normal friend, im sure it wouldn't have been that bad, as i have a tendency to not worry about things i cannot control. yet, funnily enough, it was the one person for which i would've traded anything for, the one who got me into most of the things i love to do today... going from seeing each other every day, to a possible online conversation on a saturday or sunday. while i would rather she never moved, those occasional conversations are still enough to keep me going...

Dark Forte

2005-10-02 09:23:16 pm

*sigh* having a good friend of mine move away makes me so depressed... But life should go on. If you keep up, everything will work out. The worst you feel, the worst. You should always try to keep up. I'm saying this because the exact thing happened to me a while ago too. but do not worry, you can work it out.

Cantonbags04

2005-10-02 09:42:58 pm

Samus Lauren

Well sparky, do keep in touch, because thats the best way to keep a friendship. Also, try and see each other every couple of months or so, to help rekindle the stonr feeling of freindship that you guys always shared. I remember that when my best friend moved away(she was my neighbor), i felt so bad because i could barely see her. But we still talk, and our families always love to meet, and every time i see her, I'm always reminded that no matter who she meets, I'm probalby thet only person outside her family who knows as much about her as herself. We've been through thick and thin together, and that stuff still binds us.

So dont worry. She may have moved away, but the memories still remain, and always will. And they still remain in her too, so no matter what, you'll never be totally forgotten. Wink

bartendorsparky

2005-10-02 09:45:39 pm

always move fast

Quote from Cantonbags04:

Also, try and see each other every couple of months or so

thats where the good ol' atlantic ocean comes in... >.<

Cantonbags04

2005-10-02 09:52:46 pm

Samus Lauren

Quote from bartendorsparky:

Quote from Cantonbags04:

Also, try and see each other every couple of months or so

thats where the good ol' atlantic ocean comes in... >.<

...

Well jeez, you kinda left that tidbit out, didnt cha?

Ok, make that once a year or something. If you can manage it.

arkarian

2005-10-02 09:57:01 pm

red chamber dream

I've had a similar situation happen, involving one of my best friends going off to college this year. My main way of communicating with friends is through AIM, and this friend is now rarely on anymore. She's off on her own now, "growing up", I guess, and it's just hard to not be able to talk to/see her as much.

Prime Hunter

2005-10-02 10:49:10 pm

Things like this are never easy. This sort of thing has happened to me quite a bit in the past: It seems that every few years another one of my friends either moved away or stopped hanging out with me. Unfortunately for me, I've pretty much never seen any of these people again, and it's really starting to build up on me just how much I miss some of them.

But, since I started college about a month ago, perhaps there will be someone new I can be friends with. Hopefully, things will work out for all of us in these situations.

CALFoolio

2005-10-03 12:22:50 am

Quote from bartendorsparky:

thats where the good ol' atlantic ocean comes in... >.<

You can still cyber online! w00t w00t

Chanoire

2005-10-03 04:47:29 am

This sort of thing makes me wonder how my life would have been different had the internet existed (in a publicly usable form) when I was in school. I've always been a quality over quantity person friendwise, probably because I'm just most comfortable with very small groups -- one-on-one mainly, and no more than about four unless I'm related to most of them. It was hard to really connect with classmates. As a kid I was in two different Montessori schools until I was 7, then was in 2nd grade for a month before being skipped into third, and then changed school districts and had mixed-grade classes for 4-6, so my friends were usually a grade below me (but the same age), so then when I went on to junior high I had to start over and of course they weren't in the same classes when they did arrive. Then for high school (10-12 then) I returned to the local school district and had the opposite problem: I was in 2 AP classes and marching band, all of which were entirely of people in other grades except two or three people in our 13-piece marching band. The people in my grade had known each other since kindergarten, it seemed, or at least had been in school together for several years, and I connected mainly with the upperclassmen because of the academic level I was used to. And then they all graduated before me.

College at least gave more flexibility, and I met two of my best friends there (well, one I'd known in summer camp and junior high, but again she was a year younger so we didn't know each other that well then). I also had the fortune of somehow keeping up a friendship by letter with someone I'd also met at that summer camp and seen three more summers in camp. In 1997, we finally met in person again, the first time since 89, and we remain close friends, 19 years after we met. And these three people I've mentioned are my three closest friends and pretty much the only people I see socially now, other than another friend I made at a job I had three years ago (but he lives too far away to see more than once or twice a year, whereas I'm only an hour away by car from the other three.

It's strange to compare all that with being online. I met my fiancé at a videogame messageboard, I've made other good friendships online (though again tend to talk to only two or three people on IM at length, for example), and have gotten to interact with many people whose paths would never have crossed mine, because of both geography and age. Besides my fiancé, though, I've only met a few people in person who I knew online, and that mainly because we were all going to E3 and made plans to meet up. Geography and my own asocial habits (no cons for me, for example, E3 notwithstanding) play the larger role in this, of course. But if I'd been on in high school...would I have connected with my classmates more, being able to chat with them after hours? One reason I tend to be on a lot rather than go hang out with people is because I hate leaving the house (and indeed, this was difficult where I grew up, since I was about two miles from the nearest traffic light, never learned how to ride a bike, and didn't learn how to drive until I was I college).

On the other hand, even though I think it's great that I've been able to meet so many people and learn that yes, teenagers can be worth knowing (:P), I have yet to use IRC and as such feel about the same way about it as I do about speaking with a large group of people. So maybe things wouldn't be that different. I've also vastly slowed down from my online activity when my fiancé and I were still online-only; I'm now on IM about twice a month instead of eight or twelve hours a day.

Coming from that direction, it's almost hard for me to imagine distance making so much of a difference in friendship if you can still stay in touch online, but since I have so few strong in-person relationships and spend more time online than I do in those in-person relationships (except my fiancé, of course) I'm perhaps not really equipped to understand directly. I've seen friendships fade with distance, and been regretful, but on the other hand, the ones I still have are the ones that can survive a year or two of silence and still be just as strong, as has been proven repeatedly (because I suck at keeping in touch, just tend to forget things really important to me for weeks or months at a time if they're not in front of me). And I hope that the friendships that people here have mentioned are of that same depth and type.

This sort of thing makes me wonder how my life would have been different had the internet existed (in a publicly usable form) when I was in school.  I've always been a quality over quantity person friendwise, probably because I'm just most comfortable with very small groups -- one-on-one mainly, and no more than about four unless I'm related to most of them.  It was hard to really connect with classmates.  As a kid I was in two different Montessori schools until I was 7, then was in 2nd grade for a month before being skipped into third, and then changed school districts and had mixed-grade classes for 4-6, so my friends were usually a grade below me (but the same age), so then when I went on to junior high I had to start over and of course they weren't in the same classes when they did arrive.  Then for high school (10-12 then) I returned to the local school district and had the opposite problem: I was in 2 AP classes and marching band, all of which were entirely of people in other grades except two or three people in our 13-piece marching band.  The people in my grade had known each other since kindergarten, it seemed, or at least had been in school together for several years, and I connected mainly with the upperclassmen because of the academic level I was used to.  And then they all graduated before me.

College at least gave more flexibility, and I met two of my best friends there (well, one I'd known in summer camp and junior high, but again she was a year younger so we didn't know each other that well then).  I also had the fortune of somehow keeping up a friendship by letter with someone I'd also met at that summer camp and seen three more summers in camp.  In 1997, we finally met in person again, the first time since 89, and we remain close friends, 19 years after we met.  And these three people I've mentioned are my three closest friends and pretty much the only people I see socially now, other than another friend I made at a job I had three years ago (but he lives too far away to see more than once or twice a year, whereas I'm only an hour away by car from the other three.

It's strange to compare all that with being online.  I met my fiancé at a videogame messageboard, I've made other good friendships online (though again tend to talk to only two or three people on IM at length, for example), and have gotten to interact with many people whose paths would never have crossed mine, because of both geography and age.  Besides my fiancé, though, I've only met a few people in person who I knew online, and that mainly because we were all going to E3 and made plans to meet up.  Geography and my own asocial habits (no cons for me, for example, E3 notwithstanding) play the larger role in this, of course.  But if I'd been on in high school...would I have connected with my classmates more, being able to chat with them after hours?  One reason I tend to be on a lot rather than go hang out with people is because I hate leaving the house (and indeed, this was difficult where I grew up, since I was about two miles from the nearest traffic light, never learned how to ride a bike, and didn't learn how to drive until I was I college).

On the other hand, even though I think it's great that I've been able to meet so many people and learn that yes, teenagers can be worth knowing (:P), I have yet to use IRC and as such feel about the same way about it as I do about speaking with a large group of people.  So maybe things wouldn't be that different.  I've also vastly slowed down from my online activity when my fiancé and I were still online-only; I'm now on IM about twice a month instead of eight or twelve hours a day.

Coming from that direction, it's almost hard for me to imagine distance making so much of a difference in friendship if you can still stay in touch online, but since I have so few strong in-person relationships and spend more time online than I do in those in-person relationships (except my fiancé, of course) I'm perhaps not really equipped to understand directly.  I've seen friendships fade with distance, and been regretful, but on the other hand, the ones I still have are the ones that can survive a year or two of silence and still be just as strong, as has been proven repeatedly (because I suck at keeping in touch, just tend to forget things really important to me for weeks or months at a time if they're not in front of me).  And I hope that the friendships that people here have mentioned are of that same depth and type.

AstDerek

2005-10-03 10:17:00 am

Friendship doesn't get hurt by distance (I DO know it), so don't worry too much. It just gives some more to talk about.

Oh, and...

Quote from SABERinBLUE:

in America

America is a continent (I know you knew it, but I needed to say it).

SABERinBLUE

2005-10-03 10:17:45 am

Cook of the Sea

Bah. You know what I meant.

nate

2005-10-03 11:24:55 am

Quote from Chanoire:

I think it's great that I've been able to meet so many people and learn that yes, teenagers can be worth knowing

that was probably the biggest surprise after meeting my friends here ... that some of them are that young and still are good people for me. i mean, at first i could just explain it away as "people have matured to my level" (this was the summer of 2003), but when the really young ones started coming in as mature or, in some cases, more mature than me, that was hard. it made me ask myself questions like "where were these people when i was in high school?" and "if they are this mature now, will they always be ahead of me, all other things equal?" having positive role models can make a huge difference in your behavior, and i'm really glad i found these people when i did. a situation in which you are the most mature is probably good for everyone but you.

Izo

2005-10-03 12:34:21 pm

soaking through

Quote from njahnke:

having positive role models can make a huge difference in your behavior

True dat. I've learnt so much from people on the internet.

Ekarderif

2005-10-03 01:04:41 pm

Internet... positive?

SABERinBLUE

2005-10-03 01:27:50 pm

Cook of the Sea

I seriously don't know what I would have done without this forum. Nida, for one, saved The Paragon Project from death, and that's one reason her unexpected leaving was kind of hard for me. I only knew her for about two or three weeks, but she completely turned my life around from an angsty depressed slacker of a kid to a guy who knew what he needed to do and how to do it. And that's not even mentioning all the people that helped me do things and are continuing to help me do things (or just outright do things for me) on this site. Really blows my mind. The Internet is the awesome.

nate

2005-10-03 02:26:39 pm

and you weren't even a part of the movement that originated the site. you just partook in its social stratus that came later. amazing.

now i feel as though my questioning the usefulness of the forum was moronic.

Chanoire

2005-10-03 02:52:51 pm

Quote from njahnke:

it made me ask myself questions like "where were these people when i was in high school?"

It's still a little scary that the answer is frequently "in preschool." :o

I know what you mean, though. There were undoubtedly people as mature and interesting among my classmates, and I saw some of this, but not much. For the most part I'm overwhelmingly glad that I never have to go through high school again, but I regret that I didn't get to truly know more people when I was there, wrapped up in my isolation and (sometimes) intellectual snobbery after coming from a more academically advanced program. I didn't know myself so well then either, and a bit of that is probably necessary in appreciating other people on their individual merits rather than entirely through the lens of your own expectations.

nate

2005-10-03 03:08:26 pm

definitely agree that being able to appreciate other people for who they are is a skill gained slowly over time. at the end of the day, though, it's still nice to come home to someone who, when told that you can't explain any better how you are feeling to them, says, "i understand."

SABERinBLUE

2005-10-03 03:15:38 pm

Cook of the Sea

One of my favorite things about the internet is the anonymity, if only because it allows you to hide behind a mask of sameness. Everyone's the same gender, color, and age online unless they choose to specify themselves as one thing or another. You talk to everyone who can speak your language the same way, and you measure everyone on the same yardstick. You tend to assume that everyone is of the same demographic as you are, simply because that's natural for people to do, but then when you learn that someone is, say, a girl rather than a guy, or isn't from Guildford after all but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, you have a brief double-take, merely because it's surprising, but then you also recognize that it doesn't change anything, and why should it?

nate

2005-10-03 03:18:09 pm

i'm more interested in how it does change things. now that's real science ... control all the other variables, and then you can understand what you are dealing with.

trh

2005-10-03 03:31:37 pm

Nate is probably not aware of it, but if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be nearly as positive towards life as I am now. To mention one thing he helped me through a period of depression attacks, and most likely any upcoming ones. I would write more but I'm afraid it will turn out too corny.

I meant to write an internet = positive post but it kind of turned into Nate = positive. :|