Quote from: Autumn on July 16, 2009, 03:28:36 AM
Annwyn put it out there with less sugar coating than I think is appropriate, but it's a dose of realism. A lot of young people, or people with abnormal situations (of which being TS/TG falls under) fall into the online trap.
I've done it. Hell I didn't kiss anyone til I was 20 and that was someone that I'd gotten to know as a friend online for a long time.
But it's not the same thing at all. It really isn't. Second life is not a substitute for real life, and in the long run it just makes you more lonely when you focus your attentions on an escape instead of advancement.
There was a point when just the whole having someone there who cared thing was the world to me, and don't get me wrong, it helped me in my darkest times. But my life got much better once I found real people. Better to make changes to your station and appearance in life rather than your avatar in a game. And better to grow stronger as a person and individual, because there will be plenty of times in your life when you will feel alone and unloved, and you have to learn to deal with that.
The other thing is that fantasies are often just that - fantasies. If significant portions of your development as an individual and in relationships are just fantasies, then when you actually are exposed to them, it may go very differently than you expected. Cybersex in a corset is fun, real sex in a corset is kind of uncomfortable.
You're wrong though. I mean, you're right for you. But not for everyone. Some people can and do make intense personal connections in these areas, and I find it slightly offensive to denigrate them, because the emotions and feelings involved in them, ARE real. People kill themselves over online relationships. And you may see that as a sad statement of affairs, but I see it as a slight change in the equation.
This is where we are as a society, and we're only going to go further.
I mean, not for nothing, but we're having this conversation over the internet. It's not somehow less of a conversation just because it's in this medium.
The internet allows for an expansion of the mind into places, peoples, and information you may not have otherwise had access to. It's up to you to do what you want with that after that. But I don't think you can legitimately criticize someone in such a harsh way.
It's not worse. It's diffrent.
I'd rather someone be able to make those connections on the internet than be alone with no social outlet whatsoever.
Without the internet, I don't know if I would have met and fallen in love with my current girlfriend. It allowed both of us to experience each other in a very full way before we even met. We were friend recommended on facebook through a mutual link we didn't even know we had. And it's worked out really really well.
