Friend online I've known for 1+ year hates me because I spoke his first name

SexyGreyFox said:
Is anybody else weirded out that somebody sits in front of their PC/games machine, plays games online and then calls people on the other end 'friends'?
I must have missed something!
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It's no weirder than friends using any other form of communication and better than many because it's realtime. In the past, for example, there were friends who'd only ever communicated by letter. That's far more "weird" than friends who frequently talk in realtime with each other for extended periods of time. What's weird about that?

I've just had a look at it turns out that pen pals are still a big thing. So it's not a case of "in the past" - it's apparently still quite common for there to be friends who only ever communicate by letter.
 
TheVoice said:
Does it only "count" if you get to know each other face-to-face or something?
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In my world 100% yes but I've already acknowledged that the word has obviously been hijacked into something else.

Angilion said:
I've just had a look at it turns out that pen pals are still a big thing. So it's not a case of "in the past" - it's apparently still quite common for there to be friends who only ever communicate by letter.
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I had two pen pals in the 70s but I was friends with both of them in Nigeria.
My wife just said that she had penpals in the 70s but she did know them before they moved away.

Just weird to me to call somebody a friend you have never met.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Is anybody else weirded out that somebody sits in front of their PC/games machine, plays games online and then calls people on the other end 'friends'?
I must have missed something!
Click to expand...

I agree & I have done what the guy did to the OP before!
But then I don't have facebook etc. where people seem to enjoy adding random people as friends.
The only thing we have in common is we are playing the same game, how that makes us friends I have no idea.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Is anybody else weirded out that somebody sits in front of their PC/games machine, plays games online and then calls people on the other end 'friends'?
I must have missed something!
Click to expand...

I think it's perfectly possible to develop relationships with people you have never met and even invest time and effort into it. If you get to know someone online the medium is slightly different but the end result is sharing information about yourself with others and vice versa - the same thing you do chatting down the pub with 'in real life friends'.

I have several long time friends from my quake 3 days. Granted I have met most of them in person but that came much later.
 
Even when I was running clans and taking CS and gaming more seriously, very few people would have known my real name, mostly those I met in person or had other real world interactions with.
Who knows what bots are out there listening or which lizard they report to.

If his alias were ******pie**** then asking for his name is more understandable :)
 
I can see the guys point. I hate my real name being used online with people I haven't vetted first. I used to play some games with a few people and new folks joined I didn't know as well. My name was used a few times and the next thing I know the new guys had told me about my linked in and where I worked etc. I wasn't to impressed.

Some people don't like it and if someone doesn't want their name used then so be it.
 
Change your name to "Johansmumsucksmy****" and wait for him to block you, change the name again and live happily without the drama queen in your life.

OR

Message him and apologise, explain it was a slip of the tongue and you didn't mean to do it. It's up to him then. He'll either forgive you and move on or he'll be a little female dog about it and you've not lost anything.


I'd also like to say, that if you only really know their gaming name then you shouldn't consider them real friends. Friends share information about their lives etc, regardless of the format in which you are communicating.
 
moogle said:
What a ******* weirdo. There's quite a few online (and IRL I guess) and probably one of the the reasons I don't make online gaming friends.

As the others have said, just drop them if they go bat**** about something so trivial.
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Have things changed since the World of Warcraft days of 2006? Granted, in raids, we would use our character names on Teamspeak as that was easier for everyone. When grouping with people from my buddy list though, we got on first-name terms within a few weeks. Plus, we endeavoured to meet up for real. Not once, more like 10+ times. And not just British people (6 or so), but also 2 people from Germany and 1 person from Norway. Me going to their countries as well as them coming here.

Now it's 2018, most of us quit WoW the best part of 10 years ago and we still meet up.

The OP's friend is likely to be one of those triggered Millennials, has a huge My Little Pony collection, and is possibly on the spectrum.
 
You are speaking with other people during games - no ? (I needed to google that in ignorance) so that is a big difference versus a forum, how do you avoid using your real name ... don't you say "Hi, it's jpaul here" like you would in a work conference call, if not, isn't the masquerade difficult to maintain, or everyone does it habitually.
 
Honestly if you heard the way my PSN mates and I talk to each other it'd put some real context in to this rather odd dilemma.
 
jpaul said:
You are speaking with other people during games - no ? (I needed to google that in ignorance) so that is a big difference versus a forum, how do you avoid using your real name ... don't you say "Hi, it's jpaul here" like you would in a work conference call, if not, isn't the masquerade difficult to maintain, or everyone does it habitually.
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I say "Hi, it's garsands here" something that I don't say in a work conference call for that I use my real name
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Is anybody else weirded out that somebody sits in front of their PC/games machine, plays games online and then calls people on the other end 'friends'?
I must have missed something!
Click to expand...

Not really, I know many of the people I game with personally. Most are from back in the dark ages when I used to fly MSFS, CFS, IL2 etc. and a large group of us, from all four corners of the Earth, would meet up at airshows and metal concerts/festivals for much fun and debauchery.
 
Malevolence said:
Not really, I know many of the people I game with personally. Most are from back in the dark ages when I used to fly MSFS, CFS, IL2 etc. and a large group of us, from all four corners of the Earth, would meet up at airshows and metal concerts/festivals for much fun and debauchery.
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Zactly. Almost everyone I game with has been to my house for a massive partay at some point. Suffice to say the resulting photos have been... interesting.
 
Malevolence said:
Not really, I know many of the people I game with personally. Most are from back in the dark ages when I used to fly MSFS, CFS, IL2 etc. and a large group of us, from all four corners of the Earth, would meet up at airshows and metal concerts/festivals for much fun and debauchery.
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Have you been drinking:)
That's what I said, people you call friends are people you've met IRL.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
In my world 100% yes but I've already acknowledged that the word has obviously been hijacked into something else.
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It hasn't been hijacked at all, you're just being narrow-minded. I have a friend in Canada who I've known since 2002, we only met for the first time in 2015 when I went over to visit for a couple of weeks.
 
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