"Online Friends"

Hi guys!

This post is basically a thought(/emotion) spill and is more like a diary entry than anything else; or in other words, this is probably going to be a tl;dr with no much relevance to anyone but myself. Feel free to read, however. I do write this for myself, but will probably be happy to know somebody out there did read this, if I'm being honest.

So I've been spending the past day with the feeling of a hole inside my chest, seemingly sharing the air with my lungs, making my breathing heavy. This feeling started after a sepcific event that occurred yesterday and that I've already experienced a bunch of times in the past; each of those remains in my memories like a scar.

This section is going to be super long because it's a spill of feelz-loaded past memories and I'm feeling pretty emotional right now.

Spoiler: memories

The first took place about a decade ago; my best MS friend had been spending lots of money on NX cash, and had at some point come to the realization that he couldn't bear to spend any more money on this game - and also that he was addicted and couldn't control himself.
The moment he realized this, he removed MS from his computer before he had the chance to change his mind. We were in different time zones so it wasn't surprising that I wasn't online when this happened, and he left me a message through another mutual friend; he asked her to tell me that he's very sorry he couldn't say goodbye himself and that it was simply too urgent to postpone.
So, just like that, he was gone. We used to spend hours every day for months and I never even got to say goodbye in the end.

The second took place a few years later; about five or six years ago, by my estimation. The focus here is another friend to whom I got really attached. We used to spend many hours playing together, but I was, again, in a different time zone to that of hers - except this time it was radically different, i.e the most convenient time for her to log on was a time when I was usually fast asleep with half a night behind me; I was also still at school at the time (and I'm a nerd and there's also mom) so it was problematic for me to pull all-nighters every day. I did my best to hop on my PC at mornings before school to say hi, but aside from that, we only had a scattered few weekly hours to spend together...
Except for Fridays. See, Fridays were special for me - my mom and sister both knew that Fridays were my time alone, in which I didn't have to make any sort of social interaction with anyone; it was the weekly time in which my privacy was completely respected with no one coming into my room. My mom probably thought I was having a weekly porn field trip or something but the real reason I wanted these times alone was that they were the times I spent with that friend. I'd stay up all night in Friday and we'd just hang and talk and do silly stuff, a whole night's worth of time without a moment's break. It was amazing. Those were those special moments of the week in which I felt like I was recharging after an entire week of being gradually drained out. (Not intending to sound emo, haha. Everything was fine, I just... need a break sometimes, you know.)
At some point, we both got massively tired of MS and started talking about moving together to another game. It's also been a while that I've had this burning sensation in my stomach, yelling at me to ask her for her Facebook or E-mail or anything, so that if something should happen, we could still at least keep in touch; but, meh, just what kind of creep am I to be asking fellow MS players for their E-mail? So I didn't, and just figured that when we'd migrate together to another game, we'll have to find some way to communicate, so it'll happen naturally.
And for a month or two, during our weekly time on Fridays, we'd meet and hardly do anything game-related - we'd just mostly talk about which game we'd move to but never actually made a choice. She told me that the only reason she logged on was to talk to me and that she was totally tired of that game - and it was the same for me, as well. All that while, the burning sensation never left my stomach, but I buried it, kept telling myself that she wouldn't just leave without telling me.
I don't think I could've made it more obvious with that prologue that she did, eventually. One Friday she just didn't log in. The burning sensation turned into a jumble of negativity - fear, anxiousness, self-loathing and self-anger - why couldn't I just ask for an E-mail? What would I have had to lose? She could just say "no", if it was too weird. But it was too late at that point.
For a few months after that I kept logging on every Friday and just sort of AFKing while throwing occasional looks specifically to see if she'd maybe log on. I pulled all-nighters just for the faint chance she might decide to log on again.
At some point, a few months later, I stopped logging on and instead just opted to check her characters on the rankings occasionally to see if she's made any progress on any of them. I figured it'd fade after a few months, this terrible anger at myself for not taking steps to advance our MapleStory friendship into simply an online friendship, but... it didn't really fade, and I kept checking the rankings.
And hey, guess what... After a little more than a year, the EXP did increase ever so slightly on one of her characters. I immediately redownloaded the game and restarted my all-nighters routine - and sure enough, after a few days, I managed to catch her online. We immediately said hi and both seemed very excited and also added each other on Steam (which was basically that shift I mentioned before that I wanted to make, from being MapleStory friends to being online friends in general), but... it was too late. I really tried to spark the same kind of conversations we used to have but it just wasn't like that anymore. We were mostly strangers at that point.
She didn't have an idea that I kept trying to find her for all this time, and eventually, when I realized our old friendship was beyond salvage, I decided that I had nothing to lose - and wrote her a letter detailing all of this^ (except a bit shorter, more personal and written in the form of a letter). We've talked a few times after that and it's nice to know that I have some method of saying hi to her if I ever want to, but... I don't really have anything to say. We're no longer the friends we used to be, and I still feel great regret for letting our past friendship go to waste - because I truly believe I could have saved it.
To this day, I still have this tradition of pulling an all-nighter on Fridays just reading, playing, writing - doing whatever I feel like doing to "recharge"; but it all started with her, and I never forget those Fridays.

The third happened here, on this server, yesterday. She was probably the person I enjoyed talking to the most on my buddy list. Such an awesome person. I didn't know her for nearly as long as I did those two previous friends, but I felt like we were both happy to know each other, both initiating conversations, both throwing excited greetings as the other logged on...
And then, one ordinary day she says that she's gonna train and get HS and that we'll talk soon, and literally the next day, I log on - and a mutual friend messages me to say that she asked him to tell me goodbye and that she decided to quit the game. I tried to leave her a CS note but the IGN was incorrect - which also led me to realize that she was no longer on my BL or the rankings; she had deleted her character altogether.
I don't really know what's been happening behind the curtains to lead her to do this, but... I wish I could tell her that I hope that whatever's happening, she'll be okay; to tell her she could talk to me if she felt like it, whenever. And even more than that, I just wish I could have the chance to say goodbye, to get some kind of closure. This one is still fresh... I feel like crying just thinking about it.
At some point we've had this conversation in which she was asking me some questions about my life and I was happy to answer. By the end of it I told her I had many questions to ask her as well, but wasn't sure if they'd maybe be too prying and was therefore kind of hesitant to ask them. She told me that was a silly worry considering she was doing just that to me, asking potentially-prying questions, and that she took the assumption that if she were to ask a question that was too personal, I'd say so; and she told me that the same should be if it were the other way around. The conversation was cut short, however, and we didn't get to complete it - but I decided to make an actual, physical list of the things I wanted to ask her and didn't get to so that I could get around to it the next time we speak. I'm weird like that, yeah; I like my lists.
But that sequel-conversation never happened. So now I have this list full of unanswered questions for her; questions that will probably never be answered, but will never truly leave the back of my mind, either.

tl;dr of that spoiler section: a friend had just quit and left me a "sorry but bye" through a mutual friend and this isn't the first time that's happened to me; detailed three of the most painful memories I have of such situations, including this one. I probably sounded like a crybaby throughout it all, and also probably am, but I was being completely honest.

It might just be that I'm overly naïve or innocent or sensitive or that I get attached to people (way) too easily (and all of those probably are, indeed, ways in which I'd describe myself), but that I never got to physically speak to a specific person does not make me feel like said person is not a real human being. Contrariwise, I feel like that person is a human being just like me, sitting behind a computer screen, communicating and sharing thoughts and moments and memories - through keyboard strokes, yes, but sharing them nonetheless.
Just like how I'd feel heartbroken if a "real life" friend decided to disappear from my life without saying goodbye, I feel heartbroken when a "virtual" friend does it. I do appreciate that they left me a message through a mutual friend (in some of those cases, at least), but what if I had something to say? What if I wanted to say goodbye?

I could never use the term "real life friend" or "virtual friend" without feeling a slight (or not-so-slight, really) sting in my heart; that's because I can't bring myself to make that kind of distinction. A friend is a friend. I have some amazing "real life" friends with whom I've shared so many personal moments over the years and I truly believe they'll be my friends for the far, far future. But I also have friends I've met online - some of which I was lucky enough to meet face to face, and many of which I still wasn't lucky enough to meet at this point in time - with whom I'm in touch for almost as long, and with whom I've also shared a similar volume and amount of personal moments and thoughts. If I meet an online friend in a game, and a couple of years later find myself exchanging birthday wishes on video with said friend, and a couple of years later find myself meeting that friend like any friend I've made in school - then just what is the difference between a "virtual friend" and a "real life friend"? My real life self is also my virtual self; I am me, whether I speak my mind or type it.
But evidently, this is a sentiment and opinion that most people do not share with me - or at least, most people I met online. Because otherwise, how could such good friends just disappear one day, letting all of our time together amount to just enough regret to drive them to ask a mutual friend to say "sorry but cya"? A "real life" friend wouldn't do that to me; why does a "virtual" friend have to? Let me tell you, and also offer you an advanced apology for the coming cliche: the tears in my eyes are far from being virtual.

And really, I do understand the fake identities dillemma - definitely not everyone is who they say they are... But I'm not going to let that get in the way of my forming new, real, actual friendships; all it really takes is some care and common sense and the worst that anyone's fake identity could lead me to experience is a broken heart, which is something I could just as well (and probably more) experience in a "real life" friendship (I do hate this term).

A common reasoning I hear when I bring up this kind of situation is that "this is just a game". Well... it is a game played by real people. And yes, even if the identities that some people present are fake, and even if they're not exactly who they say they are, they're all still real people, with real feelings, and emotions, and thoughts; with real time dedicated to this game or to their relationships with other real people with which they communicate through it.
And I still care about each of them with whom I had the the absolute privilege, honor, and right to spend time. And that means that I am still susceptible to feeling like I must've done something so damn wrong to lead them to leave me like that, without even enabling me the most basic of courtesies - a chance for a simple closure; a chance to say good bye.


End of the rant. Probably terribly written but I'm not in the mood to proofread.
I love my friends, be they "real life" or "virtual" (I have to find alternatives to those terms that won't make me frown as much). And I can't help it; I trust people I love. I just wish I didn't feel like I'm in constant danger of going through all of this all over again every single time I talk to someone online.
If anybody did read any of this, thanks. You're awesome. <3

Cya :')