I don't have any friends - online or in my life.

Fairweather friends. Who needs em!

I don't have any friends - online or in my life.

Cat, since I started following and occasionally commenting on the forums, I've discovered people whose posts and comments are fun, entertaining, enlightening and meaningful.

While I've never met any of them, I have formed idea's about what each person is like based on their words. Each is someone who, if I lived near, would like to have coffee with or share a meal and movie with while getting to know them "for real" and building a friendship.

I don't know if that will ever happen, but I do think well of them as "online friends" or people I have interacted with. I also think that there are many who think well of you and consider you a "friend".

Friendships are out there. Best of luck my friend.

I don't have any friends - online or in my life.

To me, and the only person I can ever represent is me.
Online entities are enlightening.

I really don't get support from those relationships because my ego requires very little support anymore.

I find other's opinions and comments enlightening and they give me something different to think about. What is funny is its not always what they say, but more of how they say it that leads me to thinking in ways that I usually don't think on my own. I causes me to consider views that are different from my own.

To me, friendship is very personal and an active in-person relationship where we share moments of our lives together in reality.

Online, I see disembodied personalities with a visual reference from the pictures they post. I can identify with most of those personalities but I don't need them to agree with my views. Sometimes the most enlightenment is gained when we don't agree. It broadens my horizons.

I had a time in my life when online friends were important to me. Facebook was addicting in such a way. I realized that I had 'friends' that I had never met and only knew what they said on facebook. I started deleting 'friends'. I removed all 'friends' from facebook but kept my account for only 'family'.

Facebook started to assault me with recommendations to get more friends. It got really irritating. I moved my facebook notifications to spam and removed all my personal data, My family knows me. Now, I never go to facebook, I don't care about it.

On M2, I get messages of friend requests all the time. I look at who is trying to friend me and decline in most cases. Only those that I have had discussions with in these forums are even considered. As it is, I have very few "friends" here. Less than five. I do not send out friend requests either. Not because I am unfriendly but because I have different ideas about what constitutes friendship.

There are personalities here that I value. There are many forum posts that are enlightening and some that are humorous. None are actual friends. If I go offline they are gone. If I find someone special, I will not be on any dating sites. Chances of me meeting anyone here in real life and bonding as friends is very slim.

At Best, these online personalities that I interact with are "friendly". I try to be "friendly" as well.

I understand the concept of online friendships and I respect others need to have many online friends. I still gain value from online interactions but I don't need a label to respect others.

I agree!