Parasocial relationships are fascinating, aren’t they? From my experience, most people are kind, so this isn’t a “people are the wort” situation. I’d actually argue that most people I interact with are lovely.
There’s actually someone local who I was messaging with over the last few months. We eventually we got coffee and have since become friends, so this online world can be wonderful.
But when it’s bad, it can be pretty bad. And sometimes, it can be dark. It doesn’t happen often and when it does, I usually roll my eyes, block, delete, and move on. I’ve been at this for years, so you learn to let it all go. At first, it was rough – the comments used to really get to me.
Sometimes it still feels a little sad and draining. Not what they say, but having to deal with it, if that makes sense.
It’s scary when a stranger tries to make these grand assumptions about who you are, and make it all so negative, and just be so unbelievably off-base. It’s sad and strange when people take their anger out on someone they don’t know.
I truly cannot imagine being in a place where I’d message someone I don’t know to say something unkind. I can’t imagine following someone I don’t like, either. You could do so many other things with your time.
I want to talk about my experience on this end of these relationships. I’ve talked to friends who do what I do and it seems that no one care about what people who aren’t kind have to say. Like at all. I am 100% open to constructive feedback and think most would be, but generally find unkind and off-base comments to be ridiculous. The people who write them usually seem really angry and unhappy. And sometimes, unhinged.
I want to talk about what happened this week, how unbelievably off-base these people are, and share my thoughts on the experience.
Let’s discuss.