Do you ever miss friends you've met online?

[Ghost]

I have been online for many years and I've met thousands of users on forums, chat apps, games, etc.
However, it's obvious that not everyone you meet will be here forever - people lose access, get banned, stop coming online, or otherwise... leave. It can be sad to think about the hours and hours - or thousands of words - shared with people I may never find again.

I can think of dozens of members of FP I may never speak to again, let alone all of the other communities I've been a part of.

I don't know if I get "sad" but there are a few key people I think of when I look back at the decades of being online. I joined my first chatroom in the late 90s, and quickly got sucked into the web for the 2000s and never stopped. I can't quantify how many people I've enjoyed speaking to, and I certainly don't know how many threads or posts I have in the ether - let's say 100k+ posts between all social networks and forums.

There's a thought that a post-grad shared with us when I was only a Sophomore in high school (2008):
One day you play you run onto the field, and you don't realize it will be the last time you play football.
With this in mind - one day you may talk to a friend online, and you don't realize it's the last time they come online.

Do you ever think about some of the friends you've met online and how do you deal with losing contact?

 

[KyngzIndeyen]

Yep, all the time! They're just as much a part of my circle of friends as the ones I know in real life.

(Fortunately, some of them do sometimes come back unexpectedly!)

 

[Katrina]

I guess it's why I choose to invite some of my closest friends I meet online to be my friend on Facebook. Then I can keep tabs on them and they can see what I'm up to as well 🙂

 

[Ravenfreak]

I do miss some of my old internet friends. There's one in particular that I wonder if she is still safe and enjoying life offline. She was from the Teen Titans community and I was friends with her on Facebook but one day she stopped getting online and that was over a decade ago. She was dating an older guy, not sure if he has something to do with her not being online or if she chose to just stop getting online.

 

[Page]

Yes and no, Most of the time you don't really no them well enough if you never meet in realife and not to mention maybe one day they just stop talking to you

 

[Cam]

I've seen a lot of people come and go. Every once in a while, I'll go back to previous forums (over on ProBoards, in particular) and check and see if any of my old friends have randomly logged in. For the most part, they don't. Not everyone stays in this hobby forever, so that's understandable. I just hope they're doing alright these days.

 

[cpvr]

I’ve connected with many of the friends I’ve met online over the years on social media (Facebook), allowing me to keep in touch with them. I also have their phone numbers.

 

[Felly]

I've connected with several people over the years through forums and online communities. It's unfortunate that I've lost contact with a good chunk of them. I have some on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, but most typically don't log on or I just don't really see their posts because they're buried among other things. I have a couple that I talk to through Discord (one of whom I've reconnected with in the last few months!) these days, but for the most part, everyone's kinda drifted and gone off their separate ways. In some cases, I'm okay with it as the relationships largely fizzled out or there was drama among the group that I just no longer wished to have in my life, but even then, they still cross my mind from time to time and I wonder how they're doing or if I should reach out and just say hi or if it'd make things too awkward.

 

[Krissycakes09]

I've met some of my best friends on forums and have met them in real life. When I was 18 and graduated High School I moved in with a lady (I met online) and her 3 kids. I lived with them for a few years then after meeting a Christian woman and her husband on a Christian forum I moved in with them for a few years. Sadly she was killed by and hit and run driver a few years after I left and moved to Idaho with my husband. Her husband just died. July 30th.

 

[MrDawn]

Just a few of them who I was close to. I miss my old online game buddies from the mid 2000's.

 

[Blazing]

Yes I do miss them a lot. Especially those I met on Facebook years back. They all disappeared one after another and no more contact at all.