I created an online persona initially, back when you weren’t supposed to put your real info out on the internet, to help myself. To try to improve my abilities to talk to others and try to make friends.
Never used my real name here, will continue not to for the sake of my own privacy of course. I’ve had people who want to kill me pop up before, oddly enough.
I don’t know where I’m headed with my life, This is the most pathetic I’ve been since maybe early middle school? I talk to very few people at this point, I mostly keep to myself, trying to get my own life off the ground, because I’m so far behind in life.
When I first stumbled my way onto this site, I used to post about a sort of clash between the me irl and the persona I made online to, I don’t know, cope with my own pathetic self?
I’d read some of the recent comments and posts. Who is that person? The person who’s a bit more confident in his answers? The drunk version of myself that finally loosened up a bit ( I mean literally, started drinking in 2021, despite never actually wanting to do so, mix of peer pressure and fuck it is what started me down that road)? The person who’s able to attempt to parse things out with context clues and the like?
Doesn’t seem like me. I’d figured I’d learned to sort of integrate both parts of myself to make myself better, and yet, there still may be a split (of course there is). I don’t know. I don’t feel like myself, haven’t felt like myself for about 6 years now.
Unsure of how to really help myself,
Trey, the mindless gamer
2 comments
You’ve hit on the biggest problem affecting this generation, the disconnect between our virtual selves and our real selves.
It’s easy for quippy journalists to dismiss it as a “social media problem” but I think it goes much deeper than that. Social media only facilitates what we feel in our hearts: a need to create an idealized version of our lives because our real lives aren’t ideal.
In real life I would NEVER talk to strangers, and I would certainly never speak honestly and emotionally the way I am here. It’s a confidence thing. Like you said, who is that person? The confident one who has loosened up, who isn’t afraid to talk openly?
Then when you shut off the computer you go back to your real life, for me it’s a dark, antisocial place where I say fewer words in a month than I’ve typed in this comment.
Which one is real?
Yeah, before I spiraled downward, I still kept to myself a bit, but I had a group of friends and family to keep me, sane?
I moved around a little and met lots of people, as you do when young and in college, but didn’t really maintain many friendships to that degree.
Now, idk why I even have a phone, just for emergencies I guess. I barely talk to anyone outside of work.
It’s weird how existential I’d become, how disillusioned I’ve felt the past few years, and, like you said, disconnected in general.
It’s so odd seeing people you knew or associated with as kids, have kids or families of their own now. I feel like I’m just outside a window peering into other’s lives for a few seconds before being dragged back into my own bleak center.