Virtual Friends

I was reading one my fellow bloggers "Big Bear Butt"'s post about a guildie that Ninja'd the bank and then server transferred away.  It was someone he thought he knew; thought were friends.

"TL;DR version – I don’t give a shit, I’m just pissed that, once again, someone I thought was a very good friend in the virtual world turns out to be someone I didn’t know at all." - BigBear

I think he is experiencing something new in the internet age that is indicative of WoW, or at least I think it is.  That is, that WoW allows us to be virtually different people.  For the most part, unfortunately, I think it is toward the negative side of our personalities.  Are we really this way?  Is the internet just the means to allowing us to act out how we would never act in person?

I think yes, to some extent.

I think that even if we sincerely feel certain ways toward the people we meet in WoW, in the end, when the rubber meets the road, these are people that if we never saw them again, spoke to them again, and such, our lives would hardly be severely impacted.  So, not everyone invests themselves sincerely to it.  Sure there might be the occasional connection that sticks, but unless the game is your life, these people are just pseudo-friends.  These are people you will be friendly to and enjoy a good laugh, but you don't take them home with you.  You don't go out to eat.  They don't meet your parents.  They don't know you and you don't know them.

Every internet relationship should have a barrier between you.  Never get too attached to the idea of the person on the other end being there because they may log one day and never come back.

Okay, I will type that again so maybe I will believe it myself... LOL.

Be nice to people on the internet and treat them like real people because hey are real people.