Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanon
You guys are my only friends <3
In all seriousness, animesuki does help ease the loneliness. It's nice to be part of a community and speak to people from all around the world about your interests.
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One thing I can say for myself is that the internet - as weird as it may sound - was a big part of me getting out of my shell. I used to live in a very small town and study at a small university back then so I didn't have much chance to bond with people with similar interests to mine. Then I started writing fanfiction and short stories as a way to let off emotional steam. It worked because most of the fanfiction community is female, so I got the chance to interact -even if only online - with lots of girls my age who found interesting what I had to say, and I got to understand better how they felt/thought. That helped me break the shell of absolute fear I felt when interacting with girls since then. After that, I even met in real life two of the people I knew on that website (and managed to completely screw up one such meeting because I can still be awkward as hell now and then
), and it still took me three years to actually end up having a girlfriend - who, surprisingly, was and still is my old high school classmate sitting next to me, the silent, shy one whom I had almost not exchanged a word with in five years and that I got a chance to bond with again years ago. And to this day, I tend to develop stronger friendships with women rather than with other men (I'm 27, so I won't say "boys" or "girls", sounds silly).
I also know a guy from another anime forum who actually has a girlfriend he met there. And people from a Facebook group who actually married. So to anyone who says internet interactions are not "real" I'd say they need to get up with the times. Surely one can't only socially interact through the internet, but it's still better than nothing.