One thing I've been thinking about is how we use the term 'friend' to describe so many of our casual relationships on here, and how in a lot of ways it's misleading and creates real problems when things go wrong and people act badly
Because the thing is, in real life? I DO know my friends deeply. I've shared real vulnerabilities with them, and they've shared them with me. I do feel a real responsibility to tell when they fuck up, and I expect the same of them for me. There is a weight there.
But on here? Most of us are not friends... not really? We're colleagues, acquaintances. We work in the same building, we wave to each other in the halls, we chat about Wandavision by the watercooler and gripe about our shitty boss
There are people on this site who I have interacted with hundreds of times over half a decade, but when you put all of our interactions together it amounts to less than one personal chat over drinks
And that's not a bad thing! It's really great to have a wide supportive network of acquaintances to network with, whose successes you can boost, who'll relate to you when you complain, who'll celebrate your achievements. It's really nice!
But when we call these relationships 'friendships', we ascribe to them this weight of significance, a weight that's not really earned, and that can translate into terrible feelings of guilt and anxiety
A big part of the problem with this site is how it blurs boundaries, between public and private, between real and fake. How it simulates closeness and intimacy, confuses public persona with real self, how it makes disconnected people seem far closer than they are
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