I (22M) have an online friend I’ve been talking to, “Ana”. (20F). Ana asked me out. I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend or what to say. I’m an anxious mess who’s been largely unnoticed by girls even in high school. Because of this, I said “Sorry, no,” even when I did want to be asked out. I cried about it because I felt bad but also because someone actually seemed to want me.
Depends on your definition of “asshole” here tbh. As, in are you a bad person? No. Are you a fool? Yes. You totally choked. Also what is an “online friend?” Someone you only know online? If so, well, that’s not someone you can actually date, so…good job getting asked out!
Being a “good boyfriend” is a matter of practice: of being fun, emotionally supportive, helpful, a good lover, a good listener, patience, all the stuff that makes for a good friend (plus sex). None of that comes without practice and grace.
Also work on your anxiety. Whether that means seeing a doctor or just…practicing being social, you need to move past that to have healthy intimate relationships.
Disagree that you can’t “actually date” someone you only know online. Online relationships are as real as any others.
No, they’re not as real. They’re mediated correspondence. You might be able to achieve a certain degree of intellectual connection through in-depth conversation to the point where you can develop a friendship, or maintain a romantic relationship for a while, but the actual relationship you have through a mediated system is not real in the way one is in the flesh. To be human and to connect with others requires, at some point, the experience not just of the mind, but of the body as well. Text is the most impoverished, but video is flat and even sound mediated through speakers is lacking. We are still animals, not brains in jars, and if you think you are creating intimacy through online communication that’s as real as real life, you are too much in your own head to understand the vividness of real life.
If you can’t maintain a deep relationship online, that’s an absolute skill issue on your part. People are, if anything, more their real selves online than in-person. All the best relationships I’ve had–romantic or otherwise–have been primarily online, and not because I don’t have any relationships IRL.
People can be more forthcoming or plain spoken in mediated communication, but definitely not more real.
I can’t say you’re wrong about your own relationship experiences, but in any mediated communication the medium itself is always there, bounding, shaping, and limiting your experience of the other. To a degree inevitably exceeding that of embodied experience, you are living those experiences in just your own head, whether it’s text evoking the idea of a voice or a flat image stimulating the memory or imagination of the heat of a body, the taste of saliva, or the smell of sweat which is not present. It is a skill issue in a sense, but the skill is storytelling, assembling the idea of a presence which isn’t quite there. And that’s fine, humans are storytellers. But we’re animals too.
Whatever, dude. If you can’t experience someone’s full humanity via the internet, that’s a you problem.
If you think you’re experiencing a person’s full humanity, that’s an error on your part.
There are people whom I met online but transitioned into having an in-person relationship with. My experiences of them online were not inaccurate or even incomplete. Again, fucking skill issue.
Yeah, they are incomplete. If you can’t tell the difference that’s a dullness in your own perception of presence.
To add to this, even realizing your anxiety is a problem is a huge step. See a doctor and/or a therapist.
I struggled for a long time because I thought I was depressed when that was true, but I was depressed about the things my anxiety kept me from doing.
Knowing that anxiety is holding you back makes it clear that you’ll be much happier if you figure that out.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/42328474/19820091