Online loner

[avgjoe]

Hello all, I am a guy in my late 30s with 2 young children. Growing up I was always introverted and had somewhat of social anxiety. In college I grew to hate the fact that I looked immature and dumb when I can't make small talks with people, so I actively worked on getting over it. 15 years later. I got to a point that I could start conversation and keep it going with just about anyone. I have had alot of opportunity to have lots of social acquaintance but always preferred meaningful relationship over activity buddies or people that I met just once or twice.

 

I have modest number of friends on FB that I added over the past 10 years at about 250. The thing is when I make a post, I know alot of people see it but I get 2~3 comments and 4~5 likes at the most. I reflected on this to figure out if it's the content or me just not likable in general to find a few things:

 

1) I do participate in political blog where I express my strong republican views (and I live in southern California where 90% of my peers are all liberal). I found out my comments on these public blogs do get shared on friends feeds

 

2) I do humblebrag time to time about my skills, possession and how beautiful my children are. I am well aware this can be a major turn off but the frequency is pretty average and compare to some of my friends who get 50~100 likes on pictures taken from some exotic places (which I view as bragging) all the time, I don't think its overthetop annoying.

 

3) I don't hang out with people frequently due to family obligation and most of my friends are single.

 

4) I do notice that on rare occasion that I have night out with my friends/coworkers, they comment/like my posts for few days immediately following the event to a week that slowly come to halt eventually. Is in-person interaction a must for people to maintain social experience on the web?

 

5) Whenever I hang out with people, we all have a blast. I get invited frequently by these "people" that choose not to interact with me online. It's not that they are not online people because they regularly participate in everyone else's page.

 

It doesn't hinder me from functioning in my daily life but it's kind of bothersome when people that I feel I genuinely connect with in life treat me like a stranger online. Like I mentioned above, I don't value activity partners or acquaintance and rather not consider them my friends because it's waste of my time.

 

It really isn't about the frequency of how many times they choose to react to my posts that reflects my life, but sometimes there are guys that comment once a year that I feel like have genuine interest and ones that are not.

 

Do you have friends online that you treat like how my friends treat me? what is it about them makes you not want to show your interest in their lives? I would like to know so if I am doing something wrong (social acceptance aside), I would like to learn and improve how I come off. Otherwise I would like to weed out aquaintance from friends.

 

Thank you!

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

How much people interact with you online is in direct correlation to how many friends you actually have in real life....actual friends who know a lot about each other, and usually with history. I have a lot of friends, so I have a lot of interaction with them on Facebook. It's a two way street, also.

 

With that said, in today's political climate, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you've turned some people off with what they've seen you post even if it was not on your own page. In my personal experience, this past election made even liberals who were originally the best of friends with conservatives no longer willing to be friendly with them, even about non-political things.

[Shanex]

You come accross as a pretty normal guy.

 

Online loner, internet nerd. I don't know. You appear to still have true friends and you hang out with people on occasion.

 

I wouldn't worry about being a conservative in liberal California. Ultimately you choose your friends not only and definitely not because of their political agenda.

 

You are putting too much thought on the social medias thing. Who care beside braggarts about the number of likes on your pics and status updates? I recently created a FB profile again and have only 35 friends so far. I used to have hundreds like you most of them mere acqauntainces.

 

If its really relevant for you. Half my friends are close family, the other half close friends and I do get many likes considering my small online circle.

 

Welcome to LS btw.

[avgjoe]

Thank you for your response and for the welcome.

 

You are right, I really shouldn't let that bother me. It honestly doesn't like kill me inside knowing no one likes me post or anything, I am more curious to know if my social skill is so horrid to a point that people go eww about it.

[RecentChange]

The political posts would be enough for me to hide your posts from my feed.

 

Then add kid posts (I understand people love their kids - but I am not a parent, it's not my jam) I would find those uninteresting and hide them as well.

 

Do you post anything that would be of interest to your friends? I get the most interaction when let's say posting about a local concert, or maybe I'll say "planning a road trip to Portland - tell me your recommendations" interactive things like that.

 

My nature photography gets the most attention of all. Which I often includes a "get out there and explore" message with, along with details on how to get to where I took the pictures from (easily accessible from my hometown).

[Shanex]

The political posts would be enough for me to hide your posts from my feed.

 

Then add kid posts (I understand people love their kids - but I am not a parent, it's not my jam) I would find those uninteresting and hide them as well.

 

Do you post anything that would be of interest to your friends? I get the most interaction when let's say posting about a local concert, or maybe I'll say "planning a road trip to Portland - tell me your recommendations" interactive things like that.

 

My nature photography gets the most attention of all. Which I often includes a "get out there and explore" message with, along with details on how to get to where I took the pictures from (easily accessible from my hometown).

 

When its familys kids Ill like on occasion but friends who post many pics of their kids everyday bore me too. I dont dare tell them and keep that for myself but still, not my jam either. If Im in a super good mood then I might go visit their profile and toss likes around.

 

Political stuff annoys me too even if its on my political spectrum. Again, I dont comment but end up hiding stuff from people who hate such and such politicians. Its tiresome.

 

The worse of it are the damned memes all day long from some people. Feminists meme, animal memes, anything memes. Its funny once a week not 10 friggin times a day.