devRant - A fun community for developers to connect over code, tech & life as a programmer

Anyone else feel like it's hard to connect with people online? I mean *really* connect. I feel like some of the communication platforms that we use to share our thoughts are not suitable for meaningful exchanges, or are not being used in such a way. Nothing is long lasting. All communication is transient and shallow. Posts get buried underneath new posts. Memes get more interaction than questions or stories. I totally get it - a meme is much easier to digest and to really like and it doesn't require a written response, and there's nothing wrong with any of that, but what happens when you have a legit question or you just need to talk to somebody deeply about a subject? There's always gonna be someone who dismisses it but leaves a snarky comment behind, or somebody answers in such a way that doesn't move the discussion forward. Now that I am writing this, I realize that similar things happen in real interactions. You do small talk, you talk about a movie or a TV show - no problem. But whenever you wanna touch on a subject that doesn't have a clear answer, or is a bit emotionally vague, it seems that people close up a bit or try not to get into the thick of it. Fuck man, I don't need a coherent, well-structured answer, backed by research. I just wanna know how you feel. Do you ever feel like this too? Are you afraid of this, the same way I am afraid of it? Or tell me why you're so excited about this? I don't know, all this is obviously very abstract and I don't know where I am going with this. I suppose there's the fear of ultimate impermanence behind of all this, and I want to share that fear with someone else, not in some kind of hardcore blood-brothers way, but just like fucking wanna feel like we're all in this together, like that we acknowledge each other as something a bit more than just a pixelated avatar (which are funny as hell by the way) somewhere out there on the network. Maybe it's all in my head.

And at the same time I recognize that if somebody responds to this post and opens up in some kind of way, any kind of way, I will possibly not know how to open up in return as awkwardness settles in and defense mechanisms go up and just the vagueness and the uncertainty of the whole situation becomes too confusing, and the whole effort drops back to a level of chitchat for a glimpse of a second before it is swallowed whole by the new waves of conversations started by other people trying to connect with somebody else to escape their own loneliness.

I think that nobody captures this kind of abstract stuff better than David Foster Wallace: "You don't have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness ... has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I'm going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me."