[ SECRET POST #6179 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6179 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Baldur's Gate]



























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #883.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

04. https://i.imgur.com/Ei0YwlI.png

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, what youre describing is friendship. I don't really get your distinction. I have friends I see once a month for a game night, and I have friends I only see on camping or hiking trips, and then I have friends I see more randomly and more often. I have friends that know my hopes and dreams and I have other friends that know little about my personal life but know what games I love and which I hate and which I have complex feelings about. Its all friendship.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's what OP is talking about. "A person I play games with once per month but don't know or talk to otherwise" is definitely not what some people would consider friends.

It's true you can be friends while only meeting up once per month, just like you can be real friends with a coworker or classmate. But meeting up to partake in some common activity doesn't necessarily make someone your friend. It just means you know who they are, aka an acquaintance.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay I think my bar for "friendship" is lower than average then haha. Thanks for clarifying though!

[(Anonymous)]

I would consider an acquaintance someone I say hi to at work, and I think my fandom moots are a bit more than that.

I'm not really looking for people to travel to see, necessarily, but someone to collaborate with on a fic or something? I would consider them a fandom friend.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe yours. Other people have mutuals they don't interact with and just follow, so ymmv.

[(Anonymous)]

I've found that a lot of misunderstandings come up because the meaning of "friend" varies wildly from person to person. Some of it is also cultural, but even in the same culture there are differences in specific people's ideas of friendship. Like damn was I caught off guard when I visited someone out of state who I talked to almost every day online, and she wouldn't tell me why she was crying in the middle of the night (in her apartment that she invited me to stay at during my visit) because "I mean, it's not like we're FRIENDS."

Some people also apparently think you're a sociopath if you use the word "friend" for casual relationships. It's really an astonishingly gatekept word among some.

[meadowphoenix]

unless she operates her apt like a hotel, most people where i'm from would consider that friendship, like you'd have to be out in the holler where its necessary to have acquaintances stay with you to think otherwise. i would have been as surprised as you.

[(Anonymous)]

DA yeaaaah I feel like some people (whether they intentionally do it or not IDK) treat their friendships like something they can apply on and off at will.

Oh you want to gush about Fandom together and I'm really into yay! We're friends!

Oh no, you want me to listen to your personal issues. Oh um, we're just fandom friends, so I don't know why you're dumping your issues onto me.

I need a shoulder to cry on and it's sorta Fandom related but it's also about my personal life. You're my friend, so you have to listen to me, otherwise you're a shitty friend.

Oh you want to talk about a fandom you're into but I'm not? Well, we're just fandom friends so I don't know why you are wanting me to get into it.

What? You don't want to get into a new fandom I'm into? But we're friends!

[(Anonymous)]

So so true.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm. What you describe as your ideal is what I think of when I hear the term "fandom friend". Like the other anon said, there are always different levels and friendship groups that like different things, do different things, and have a different level of intimacy. Isn't that how everyone does it?

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't say I'm unfriendly, but I tend to keep my distance in fandom too and rarely go into my real life with random people online. Maybe I'm picky but there are plenty of people I'd be fine doing activities or playing stuff with or alongside, but also would not want to be the "friend" of (i.e. having a closer personal relationship and the expectations of caring or being there for them that come with that). To use your volleyball team example I'd be fine playing with a bunch of people but do not want them to have my phone number or to be expected to answer them for personal reasons. I treat fandom friendship the same way, and that's just how it is

I like and can get along with or at least tolerate most people, but there are few that I find interesting enough to pursue on a personal level /shrug

[(Anonymous)]

To be honest, I'd love to have "fandom friends". I don't know if it's this idea of wanting to go in deep with others from the get-go mentioned by OP or not, but it seems that some people won't even really interact in a fandom-related way if they aren't already sharing DMs with a certain fic author or artist they're replying to. It makes for a bizarre experience online when you just want to chill, indeed -- let's talk about how character A is secretly longing for character B even if we will never know one another beyond that because discussing what I ate for breakfast or what happened at work is simply not what I'm looking for when I want to talk about my favorite show with other fans...

[(Anonymous)]

Because some of those people are shut ins who only have online fandom friends and not a wide circle of acquaintances?

[(Anonymous)]

There's an epidemic of loneliness going on. I would guess that a lot of these people are seeking friends in fandom because they don't have friends elsewhere.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like there are a whole lot of people online who just... don't understand how normal social interaction works. Having "activity buddies" or "work buddies" or "class buddies" is a completely normal thing! There's nothing wrong with enjoying the company of people you spend time around for whatever reason but not wanting to pursue a deeper relationship than that. Not all friendships need to be deep or close or anything beyond "we enjoy doing an activity together sometimes."

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are nuances to friendships and ideally many want their friends to be both someone who we can enjoy our interests with and someone we can rely on to listen to our struggles and help uplift us, whether it be personal or professional goals/dreams.

But in reality, most friends can only really be a particular sort of friend. The friend who you catch up with from time to time because you live far apart and your schedules don't match up, but you're both avid con attendees. The friend who you talk to every day and you exchange your day to day stuff, you don't really have the same interests when it comes to hobbies though. The friend you joke with at work but you dont interact outside of work. Etc.

And these are all perfectly fine.

I think an issue we run into is that when someone is going through something difficult, it's really hard to figure out if all your friends will be the type of friends who you can open up to that sort of stuff.

And unless one or both parties state whether or not they are a friend outside of their regular interactions, it leads to oversharing or misunderstandings. And then the whole friendship vibe changes.

Honestly, I feel like the sorts of people who try to differentiate "friend" from "fandom friend" either is someone who doesn't want to let their more fun friend in on their "inner circle" or they are someone who feels a need to do so because they'd been "fandom friend"ed by someone who they thought was a "friend".

I am the latter. I felt terrible that I was trying to talk about personal topics with some friends and they seemed uninterested so I realized that some people who I can gush about fandom stuff with only really value me in that aspect so I need to verbally remind myself that there is a difference between a friend and a fandom friend.

[(Anonymous)]

I think capriciously delineating a line between "fandom friendship" and "real friendship" JUST because you know the person via fandom is bizarre and frankly offensive. "Because I met you this way, I will use you only for one purpose and never interact with you otherwise." Like, wow. I have no need of "fandom friends." I can talk to randos about my interests all I want on the internet. Real friends are special. The primary way someone meets a real friend is through a shared interest. If someone dismisses the potential of real friendship just because they met via fandom, then at best, they seem demonstrably to have a way of categorizing other human beings that is arbitrary and illogical, and likely, they are also a selfish and somewhat solipsistic user.

[(Anonymous)]

I really don't think OP meant that anyone should draw a rigid line between "friends" and "fandom friends", though, or that anyone would outright refuse to move on from "fandom friendship" to "official friendship" if that were a natural development in the relationship. The issue is more with how apparently some people can't much interact with one another without wanting to be super close from the get-go -- and that can come off as creepy, invasive or just downright annoying to people who really just want to come online and trade a few headcanons or read some fics instead of diving head-first into what can be seen as a very artificial intimacy to begin with.

Normal friendships usually develop from having interests in common anyway, if the people involved want that. What's not very normal is to pressure people into being on a first-name basis or meeting up in real-life or disclosing all of their preferences, political ideologies and whatnot just because someone wants to reblog a single post from you on Tumblr or something.

[(Anonymous)]

This. It's one thing if a friendship develops that way naturally - I have a whole bunch of fandom friends who have gone on to become RL friends because we enjoy each other's company outside of our mutual fandom. But I also have plenty of other fandom friends where our interaction is limited to talking about said fandom and that's all that either of us really wants out of it and that's fine.

[(Anonymous)]

You're the one saying fandom friend = "Because I met you this way, I will use you only for one purpose and never interact with you otherwise." And also the one saying that that's bad for some reason.

What's wrong with having bros at the bar you watch the game with and then don't contact otherwise? What's wrong with having girls at the library that you like to study with then don't contact otherwise? Why is "fandom friend" an offensive thing to be if there's nothing wrong with that? What's saying a person you met through fandom can't be a real friend, and another person you met through fandom is a fandom friend you enjoy fandom with and nothing else?

I really don't understand all this judgement about REAL vs NOT REAL friends. Friendly acquaintances are good and cool and healthy things to have, and yet there's all this disparaging talk about ~not needing~ them.

[(Anonymous)]

Like others have said, I think a lot of people don't actually have the kinds of relationships you're describing, or close friends. Most people want both but want the latter more - hence saying they want a friend, not just a fandom friend.