Fantasy

It seems to be a rather hot topic of late in completely different and unrelated places and under completely different circumstances, this nature of e-communication and the embodiment of fantasy. Now, I'm starting off this way because the alternative way to start off would be lies, it's all lies! But I think that's a bit more sensationalist and doesn't encompass everything that I think falls under the more general heading.

Once upon a time I got into an argument with my then flatmate C about the nature of reality. She'd taken some philosophy class and was doing a very bad job at explaining the philosophical theory of individual realities. Mainly, that your perception of the world is unique, and that two people will never have the same perception even if they stood in the same place and witnessed the exact same thing because perception is always tainted by personal experience, expectation, history, and thought. My argument was, if a glass falls off a table and breaks, the glass is fucking broken, end of story. Or rather, that some things were absolute outside of interpretation. But that's sliding a bit off topic.

The point is, some people come to the internet to free a part of themselves they may keep hidden inside, but some people also come to the internet to try out being a person that they really aren't. And that it's impossible for anyone to really know, if they have only met in this forum, one from the other. Of course the gut reaction to that supposition is to say to oneself, "Yes, but I know so and so and feel secure that they are exactly as they seem". Except of course, they aren't.

Even when you meet people in person they can be duplicitous and sneaky. People keep secrets from their best friends, their lovers, their family. It's just part of human nature. I think the problem sometimes with this form of exposure is that it gives the incorrect impression that the strangers you meet and know and grow to care about are somehow more honest and real than the people you meet in your day to day life. Except they aren't. And what makes the likelihood of this miscommunication happening here, is that you often feel like you have an inside track, you feel that you know them better based on what they say, and ultimately, as you grow to 'know' or 'like' them- or at least, what you interpret them as saying, also sometimes known as and tainted by, what you want to hear. And so the fantasy builds about what someone's life is like, how they are in person, who they are. But to a large degree much of this is fantasy, both yours and theirs. A fantasy that can be prolonged and enriched and encouraged by the separation and the distance and the lack of all the other information we collect from our day to day surroundings and interactions that would give us valuable clues in our real lives about who we like and what we think of others. It's all missing here.

So the fantasy grows and builds and becomes this thing that captures all of our feelings and emotions. Which is why it is so painfully crushing to have it be revealed as an untruth, a lie, or a deceit. Perhaps the best thing would be to never become attached to the strangers you meet, and just accept them as amusing online entertainments. But who gets to do that? Everyone gets involved, and everyone cares. But that quickly escalates to caring too much, and getting too involved. And the carnage of those multitudes of revelations, of disappointments, of unmet expectations, and of peoples real and honest pain are strewn across and litter the internet.

Sometimes, it's enough to make you not want to come back anymore.