im mostly curious, i dont have the emotional energy to get upset anymore

I sort of get along with one of my housemates even though he's kind of a liberal white knight. Also go to play Smash Bros. Melee with some guys every Friday or so but I don't know them too well. Aside from that just online folks here and there.

I don't have any friends at all, I keep social interaction at a minimum.
Wonder about it too sometimes.

If one is content with having friends in real life, I can't see why they would go to sites like this one. If one likes having friends then I'm pretty sure they prefer interacting with them over anonymous discussion above all because it's much more closer and intimate, you get the whole picture of them reacting, you can laugh together and all that shit that makes people want to have friends, so I really don't see how those are interested in discussing stuff completely without identity. Friends also need a lot of time, so there'd be almost none left for imageboards, if you still like to have "real" hobbies.

Also I really wouldn't feel comfortable here if I had a functioning social life, I mean wouldn't that be similar to watching a freak show as a normal person? I couldn't feel at home. Bigger communities like 4chan or similar sites are different of course because they have a huge amount of people posting them which automatically means that the majority conforms to the norm of real life society. I really feel disdain for those people who go there to play the little social misfit, talk about their fetishes and complain about "normies" while having a functioning social life and being not much different from other people in the normal work-/school life society.

What I'm trying to say is that this form of anonymous communication seems to be made for me, I really can't imagine discussing stuff with a real life person where all the other irrelevant shit has an influence. If you have a friend all the shit that has been said always plays a role, the whole "shared" history weighs on every discussion regardless of the topic and everything you or the other say will always be received in the context of the image you or the other have made of each other.
It just seems so impractical to me. Obviously that stuff is what makes people want to have friends, the emotional ties that either build up or weaken during the friendship and all that stuff. That's just something I really don't want to have or need to.

I would probably be considered schizoid because of that view but who the fuck knows, I sure as hell won't go see a psychologist.

Sorry for the rant, I don't think you wanted a reply like this one but I've written it already, so I'll just post it.

I have no friends, online and off. Not that I'm opposed to having friends or anything.

I do not have any 'online friends' but I do have an 'offline friend', if my brother counts.

Pretty much none. I grew distant with all my online friends over the years, and I don't feel like going through the effort to find offline friends. Besides, the 3D world is terrible.
I've given up on making new friends, I just don't click with anyone and my interests are apparently too esoteric. or maybe I just don't have any interests. It gets lonely but I'm coming to accept it. Programming and shitposting are all I have now. I'm trying to make a bot that will function enough to sufficiently replace my need for social interaction. If I can't get that working, I dunno, maybe I'll kill myself.

I don't seriously have anything against people who have a handful of people that they talk to somewhat regularly and may even be close to. The people who really irritate me are the ones who claim "I'M SOOOOO LONELY AND MY LIFE IS HORRIBLE", while having an SO, a job, a successful life, a good family, and an active social life. These people tend to be women, although I am aware that some women really are lonely and miserable for legitimate reasons, and there are many, many men who are just as hypocritical.

I myself am not a perfect example of the demographic here. I'm older, I have a Master's degree, I was the oldest child in my family, I'm not overweight, I don't watch anime anymore, and I'm even on good terms with some people (although they are far closer to others than they are to me, and I think that most of them pity me).

So why am I here? Well, I'm unemployed, I'm on SSI, I've never fucked, I don't have a future, I'm alienated by almost everyone else, I'll never know love, I came from a bad family, I play eroge (not as much as I used to), I love pixiv, I can only stand old video games, I hate modern media, I had a terrible drinking problem that I just got over...and the list goes on.

I can't relate to anyone, and I'm only getting more creepy as I get older, even though I'm actually a lot less unusual in behavior. I have to read books and escape into abstract ideas in order to make my life more bearable. I'm smart, and probably a lot smarter than most others, but that isn't going to save me from this world.

In short: I'm here because I have no where else to go. It is a good thing that I prefer the ghost towns of the internet over the bustling, degenerate cities of social media, where things will only get worse, one way or the other.

I don't have any friends anymore.
It's really easy to lose them and it's even harder to get them.
True friendship doesn't exist. People are only your friends as long as you give them something they desire, be it company, insight, status or whatever.

Luckily I can cope with only using chan sites for my tiny social needs.

People can't live without social relationships, that is the reason why we browse imageboards of all kinds.

You don't need any friends when you have Anonymous from all across the world inside of your screen.

Men fight and die to protect their loved ones. But for those with no one to love, what reason do they have to fight?

>>21774
That's a terrible reason to "fight". Most loved ones will end up betraying you and/or see you as a tool for their own personal gain anyway.

>>21775
>Most loved ones will end up betraying you
Yeah, during the time soldiers are away their wives and 3DPDs get tired of waiting and slut it up all the time.

I have a couple of friends. One is pretty much like me and I'm his only friend, we've been close-ish for a long time. Unfortunately I mostly just hang out with him for fun, he would never be able to relate to most of my life experiences. The other is charismatic and has a ton of friends. I just get together with him to drink since nobody else will drink with me. Pretty sure he's my friend out of pity. Overall, I can't say I can really relate to either or them to me.

Ive never had an actual friend, acquaintances maybe, like people youd sometimes go with to the cafeteria and generally choose to work with in teamwork asignements but as soon as the course is over I walk away. Im as surprised as you, OP, ive learned that the vast majority of people posting on chans nowadays are fairly normal people. Thinking about it it kinda makes sense, I mean consider the low quality of posting pretty much everywhere, its all either about relationships be it friends or gf, or lack thereof (I think in reality most people are pretending in order to better fit in with the self imposed loner loser stereotype as you can now tell) and interest/hobbies boards are most often full of mediocre posters save obscure and slow places. A true loner either by choice or forced would eventually give up and pursue his other interests, a truly knowledgeable person about any subject wouldn't really care enough about people to blog about it all day with random strangers whether he has a million friends or none. This leaves us with the actual normal people, those not knowleadgeable enough to make worthy contributions to the community and normal enough to have a handful of real friends and relationships with exes all over the place (albeit with issues with said people, as it should be because nothing's perfect and life sucks dick for everyone) flooding the chans as its evident by the average posting content and quality. I say actual normal people because I believe the current consensus of what's normal is way too fucking misguided in my opinion. Normal isn't a dudebro fucking all the chicks who's friends with everyone, that's merely an hyperbole created by the collective (my guess is it's done as a way to better stablish what we should not or don't want to become), normal is a guy with a handful of friends and contacts on his phone, sometimes single sometimes not and with drama filling the voids.

There's also the notion that anonymous communication provides a medium for all sorts of people, normal or not, to talk about things they'd never dare discuss in real life. Can't blame them for that. That's my simple reasoning for why normal people come to chans.

On a related note it amazes me how relatively functional anons families are, the way the media portrays places like this makes you think everyone here grew up to be the stereotypal murderer or rapist but that clearly isn't the case and makes me feel even more alienated on a place I thought I could relate to. Or maybe it's me who's truly fucked up.

That still doesn't answer your question so I can only guess the interest doesn't imply an specific personality and that audience you're thinking of is much, much, much, muuuch smaller than you think it is and the current audience is simply an illusion.

>>21808
I agree with almost everything you said except
>its all either about relationships be it friends or gf, or lack thereof [...] A true loner either by choice or forced would eventually give up and pursue his other interests, a truly knowledgeable person about any subject wouldn't really care enough about people to blog about it all day with random strangers whether he has a million friends or none.
I don't think the relationship aspect is that big (at least on the 4chan boards I visit) that truly knowledgeable people fuck off since they don't necessarily need to be abnormal in the having friends regard (although those without have more time to acquire knowledge) and probably aren't bothered as much (loner maybe). You can always ignore that shit while contemplating the people who post it and still get nice discussions or the information you wanted.
The loner also may still keep posting because it's the easiest way to get immediate responses (the forced one probably more than the other), his other interests can't satisfy his social needs and places like this one probably are too slow to comply when the loner feels the need to communicate (again more likely for the forced one).

>the interest doesn't imply an specific personality and that audience you're thinking of is much, much, much, muuuch smaller than you think it is
I still believe that this place here does imply a specific audience or at least being not normal at all and OP's expectations are justified and fulfilled in my opinion. Sure, we have a few people here who have friends but I think those are in the minority as opposed to bigger chans where normal people are obviously the majority. This thread would back up that notion, if you want to believe the people who have posted so far.

>the way the media portrays places like this makes you think everyone here grew up to be the stereotypal murderer or rapist
You should know that the media is out for the views and clicks so portraying stuff in a complete exaggerated way is how they make money.

Post edited on 26th May 2016, 5:45am

I've had absolutely no friends in the last 5 years. I don't even have a clue how someone like me would go out and make them. IRC humor/bantz doesn't appeal to me, i've lost interest in video games, and i'm not aware of any outdoors enthusiasts that aren't painfully extroverted. I'm stumped.