#efriends

Hi!

I’m looking for a penpal I can write letters to!

I live in the US, I like books and writing. I wouldn’t mind sending letters outside of the country. please please if you’re interested in being my penpal, hit up my DMs or leave a question on my profile and I will respond!

Message me or something

Cassia

:-)

I raise a toast. We’re celebrating again. 1000 subscribers. In a record time for us. Incredible times. The boys smile at me from the screen. “To ten thousand by 2022!” - I exclaim.

We have decided to start a tradition of having a dinner night at every important milestone of our careers. We order in and enjoy each other’s company. Spicy chicken sandwich in hand, I’m waving my hands around, drunkenly describing how we are destined to replace Joe Rogan in the podcast game. 

I save a screenshot of the subcount to the “The Cosmics Journey” folder. As I clean up my desk after the dinner and turn off my PC, doubt slowly creeps in. “What if this is the peak?”, “How can’t we keep the momentum?”, “What if this is a one time thing?”. I ground myself. We’ve been through worse. Hell, I almost quit last year! The best is to focus and to persevere. After all, this is the only part that we can control. 

Monday, Oct. 07, 2013

I’m going to recap several gaps in my life in which I haven’t focused a particular topic on. Online relationships have transformed me in a way in which I couldn’t have imagined. There are a lot of positive aspects as well as negative aspects to it. I used online relationships as a form of escapism from reality. It granted me immediate feedback, gratification and attention if I was lonely, stressed, and needed someone there.  The art of communicating with written words is something that helped me express myself more in depth and allow myself to be more open to the other online people.

t’s has been noted that my online friendships with people have lasted for several weeks, some several months, and others that lasted a year.  That feeling of greeting someone in the morning with an msn text and then closing an msn text before going to bed was a warm, cozy, reassuring feeling.  When I feel more open to someone, I feel comfortable around them and have some sort of emotional connection with that person.  A lot of my online friends were males. I could easily talk to them.  I will admit, a lot of it had to do with some sort of personal validation and being flattered from the praise and attention I received. 

Some of these friendships at first seemed like platonic friendships. Eventually it got to that point where I felt like I appreciated them more and wished to see them in person. I became jealous when I found out that they eventually got a girlfriend or wife.  At some points, I became confused if they just saw me as a friend or something more than a friend.  

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Thunder was my first online friend. We randomly became friends through a social networking site that my Indian friends introduced me to [the site].  He added me thinking I was 18+, but I lied about my age, and I was like 16-17 lolol.  He does some sort of computer graphic design or drawing tutorial work. He was kinda disappointed I was young, but we were just friends. Eventually I got older and was shocked he eventually found a wife from his workplace. I had no idea he was seeing anyone. We met each other in person once before he and his wife left to move to California. He and his wife were pleasant to be around. It was a positive meeting experience.  After he moved, we gradually communicated less and less. He divorced his wife. We remain FB friends.

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I met “J” through my sister. He was an admin on an anime forum. He basically helped give me emotional support through my struggles in freshman year in college while I battled loneliness and adjustment. He eventually found better employment somewhere and married a woman. Our communication dissipated quite a bit. Those phases of friendships come and go.

Being a part of that anime forum lead me to connect with a lot of other online people out there. Everyone was fairly around the same age, young and clueless about life with no obligations. I easily rose to awareness and attention by being sisters with a former moderator.  I posted my picture, and a lot of the male users complimented me and wanted to get to know me more.  One of those people stood out to me as far as being an amusing friend goes. And here I embarked on some sort of journey with Tom. 

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He was rather notorious on the forums, a bigshot member who posted frequently and was able to instill humor and witty jokes here and there.  I was impressed by his boldness and charisma.  We started out as friends. He became jealous of me when I went through that FWB phase with Dave. Eventually it lead to me being more than friends after a while. I clung to Tom when the whole Dave friendship failed. I just wanted someone to care about me and be there for me emotionally.  I wanted some substance. I wanted to have a boyfriend. I felt like I could be a “good girl” and hold off on sex. I didn't want to be a slutty girl who slept around with a lot of men, so I used this online relationship as some justification for me to force me to be more pure.

 I’ll also note that I was a stupid, naive, dumb girl who fucking webcammed for this guy when I didn’t have a fucking clue what he looked like. I just wanted attention and the shit. I wanted someone to revere in my body and appearance.

It’s always exciting and interesting discovering and talking to new people. You become flattered at the person they seemingly are. You see how amazing and confident they are.  As you get to know them more, you discover the darker side of the person. And that is what happened.

We would have minor arguments here and there that eventually did resolve.  It was an emotional struggle, but sometimes the arguments made us feel closer after the resolution. He had several red flags that I should have paid attention to. He was controlling, he was socially withdrawn from other people, he had no close real friends who he maintained a consistent communication with, he was antisocial in the real world, he also would talk about physical workout regimens but he was always reluctant showing pictures or videos of him.  But somehow despite all that shit, I was somehow convinced otherwise that he is a good and caring person that was genuinely caring about me.  That’s what I wanted right, someone to care about me?  

I had to go through a ton of bullshit with him. I was frustrated about how I was the only one who cammed, and I couldn’t even see or hear shit from his side. He made fucking excuses where he was unable to cam or talk on phone more often.  Typing this entry is also making me feel angry and disgusted as shit.  

It was like a 3 and a half year pseuedo relationship.  We messaged each other online everyday, getting into a routine of “hi, how are you etc”. And then we complain about random stuff to each other. It got to a point where I was all, “hi, when are we going to meet?”  I finally had an apartment, but he had issues with finances, no car, still living with parents.  I felt awkward if I had to drive there to meet him first. I shouldn’t be the one to go there and fucking meet him first anyway.  I already did my part by camming to him the first time. What a bastard.

Anyway, I felt like I was struggling. I told him that we shouldn’t label ourselves as BF/GF anymore. We are just friends. He took it with some difficulty, but agreed. Eventually we phased out the *kiss* in our closing statements at bedtime. Even as just friends, I felt all weird and smothered by him. It was an unfulfilling friendship that didn’t seem to be going anywhere.  I was also talking to an online guy (MMO) dude that I probably wrote an entry in a couple months back.  That MMO guy bailed out on me and didn’t seem interested in maintaining friendship with me.  MMO guy lived in Oklahoma, and I wanted to meet him too. 

Whenever I saw the new pics that Tom finally decided to show me, I was pissed and disappointed. I guess I was lying to myself thinking that he would somehow miraculously drastically change his appearance from the old 2006 photo that he showed me first.  He was sort of slightly overweight and his facial expression was that of apathy, boredness, blankness, no smile.   It was like the way he described himself in words was that of a lie compared to his actual appearance. I was lied to in a way, or deceived, or I just tried to ignore shit in the beginning and have some sort of blind hope it wasn’t true. 

I tried to give him a chance, but I suppose the physical aspect became a point to where it was starting to be more of a turn off.  I also just felt bored of him. There was nothing new in his life. He didn’t seem to have any goals or passion in his life for anything.

So yeah, throughout all this, I’m so fucking sexually frustrated and deprived  a 3 year dry spell.  I hate this idea of being faithful or devoted to someone who would never be there for me in person. There’s always that talk of someday we will meet, just wait, it will happen.  3 years of this talk and still nothing happened. I got that emotional support and attention, but I realized that I needed both- physical and emotional needs met.  It was time to say, G’bye. 

 And that’s when I met Andy in January.Tom was pissed I met Andy and just.. had sex with him on the first date.  It was unexpected and he felt like he was betrayed. But I told him, we aren’t even BF/GF anymore, no need to be worried. Somehow he felt like he had some sort of entitlement. 

I probably could have. Should have? Given him some warning as far as “hey, I’m talking to this guy and am going to go on a date with him”. kind of thing.  I probably treated him like shit. But there wasn’t any obligated rule for me to be devoted or faithful.  I don’t want to be held back. I want to do what I want. In some way, I may have used Andy as far as trying to make a stepping stone to get away from Tom. I needed to cut the strings off and tie off any lose ends. 

Tom and I discussed things further. He eventually understood what I was going through and agreed to give me space. He wanted to still see me. He wanted to still be my friend. I still felt constricted and smothered. I kept him on FB, but I wasn’t going to go on MSN anymore. He made several comments on my FB activity and feeds. I was beginning to get annoyed and pissed off at his slight actions that weren’t trying to be harmful or intimidate me.  He still tried to cling to me sometimes sending a random mail once a couple of months or weeks of self reflection.  Of course I would respond back in some manner. I told him I didn’t want to be angry all the time whenever he tried to post stuff to me. I told him that I was going to remove him from my friends list and block him.  We still have each other’s email if he wishes to contact me randomly.

I wonder if this is all considered running away.  But I feel better about myself. I feel like I can focus on myself in the real present world.  I am more away from being glued to the internet.  I appreciate Tom’s friendship and care about me. I did care about him more too at some point.  I learned several things about myself throughout the whole process. One lesson I learned was to never do online relationships again or even online friendships for that matter too.

There is so much to do and experience in the real world: meet and hang out with local people, go to places and engage in fun activities, eat with people and share stories with people in real time. Seeing their smile, seeing their humorous antics in person, and also feeling their touch in person is something that words on a screen simply cannot replicate.