Friends Long Gone; Last Seen A Long Time Ago

Yeah, a couple of people on Facebook, and I do know what happened to them. Both were not good results, and without getting into too much detail, their absence has cause considerable pain.

Definitely know the feeling. I'm down to maybe three friends who still enjoy gaming, when at one point I must've had fifteen or more. I don't fully understand it, since from my perspective, gaming most easily coincides with basically any other hobby. I do understand it from the point of view of having a family and raising children, that stuff takes a lot of time out of every day life, but I have seen guys with families manage to make time for gaming. Just depends on the order of your priorities, I suppose.

I met a friend here a long time ago, and later on met a lot of friends that have since moved on. I don't even believe I had any Internet friends from about 2016-2018 actually.

What sucks more is he was one of finest people I met in my entire life which I took for granted, and still know 100% I fucked up.

If you end up reading this, I believe said member has me blocked- I've grew a lot but I'd hate myself 3 years ago, quite honestly. Fuck me.

A few members who just up and disappeared here stand out. I just wanna know if @mashers is okay.

It kind of sucks when people just disappear because it always leaves you wondering. Almost like a runaway dog who never returns.

If mashers is the one I'm thinking of, people were really mean to him about 3DS CFW he developed. Maybe that's why he left.

Real Life Friends has always higher value and more consistency than the one in ur ''friend list'', and life is subjected to change: like career, marriage, children or personal health, when they can't afford the same time and energy they used to gaming, then it's not hard to image which part of their life is the easiest part to drop....

that's right, playing videogames.

it's not sad, and TC and fellows should congratulate to ur ''friends'' that they have finally found better placement in their life rather than playing videogame with some imaginary friends

i know, sometimes i ask myself what those old friends are doing now

There are actual people I know who died. Their profiles kind of are like repositories, with their last seen dates being the day they died or the day before. Checking their last activities and posts gives me a dizzy spell of being overwhelmed by memories and the fact that I'm watching like a rewinded movie, right up to the moment of their death. Sometimes I look at the time in between posts when I know they passed on, and try to imagine the flow of events between the last activity and moment of death. Other times I look at the casual conversations they were having, and how abruptly they turned into mourning obituaries after their passing. Two of these people also have Steam accounts and communities, where I continue to see them in the members list, their "last online" date ever climbing. They have reached into the thousands now. One of them is in the moderator group, near the top.

Then there are also the people who simply vanished. Those also flood me with memories as I remember my activities with them and sometimes wish I could have developed the connection into something more, as some of them filled me with intrigue while others with developing feelings. Things I might've not paid all that much attention to for a while as their activities either slowly ceased or died out without a trace. It always gives me pause and floods me with speculation and memories. I went to enormous lengths with one such event to figure out a conclusion, and eventually found the person after nearly a decade, teetering on the edge before deciding to leave them be, unsure of what I would want to make of a new approach... they'd left that life behind, and it felt like they intended to do so.

Closure and resolution are very important to me psychologically, and my feelings towards people also don't waiver with time. To that end, gazing upon the online spaces of the departed or vanished always puts me through a storm of thoughts and feelings that I never learned how to quell. And so all I ever do is just experience it over and over.

I kind of agree a little bit with Leon though he didn't put it very nicely. Gaming is something you do while you're waiting for your "real life" to start - you're friends with those people while you're both at the same stage of life but as soon as one of you is ready to start their real life you won't be able to stay in contact. Even when you're both past that stage if you don't live near each other it is too hard to stay in contact since you'll never see each other on the in-game chats. If you start with the assumption that a friendship that starts by playing games is always temporary it might hurt a little less when it ends. Or maybe it will hurt more, I don't know.

Sounds more like cell9, but perhaps the same happened to mashers

ShadowNand I think it was called

Been there and yeah it sucks. Like others have stated people lives are always changing. Some get married some drop the hobby all together or decide to spend their time on other things. I wouldn't be too sad about it, things are always changing, learn to accept that and enjoy the time you have with the people you care about.

Nah, I feel the same about everything: see you when I see you, above or below.

Shit, it's actually funny when you open up your life--I'll spare you the story, but I was talking to a dude I used to work with--turns out, he's on 'temp.

Not-so-TL-but;DR
Don't worry about it--I probably live 40 miles from you.

I felt this a couple days ago. I remembered people I once knew from 2013 and saw some profiles from websites that have been dead for years. It's sad.

It's part of the reason why Internet friendships are risky.
sorry, man, I can totally relate

Honestly, yes. While not on Steam or GBAtemp, this is something i've come to dread on RoyalRoad. Checking up on other authors, people I chat with, bitch about readers being self-entitled 12yr olds, swap reviews and writing advice with, spend hours fleshing out storylines and characters with, and finding their profiles dead. Sending PMs that don't get answered, checking their Discords, only to find them dead, trying their author usernames on other sites, and finding profiles abandoned too.

What happened to them? Did they just lose interest, have an accident? Are they ever going to return? All questions that still haunt me. Don't i wish i had answers.

I have been blessed with the fact that i know all my friends that i play games with not online but in real life. growing up a bit before online became a hot ticket item, we all prefer to hang out in the weekends and just take over the couch and play games. I only had one friend in real life who moved on and even though we tried to reach out to say hi to him a few times he was rather indifferent to it. People change and times change. :/
I am however lucky that all of my friends from almost 15 years ago are around and they are a big part of my life.

Hellooooooooooooo
Been a long time T-T

I went through old Dms, and it's sooo sadd how many people are offline

Hello @VinLark .

"Long" time since you wrote your Blog.
How is it currently with your friends and people ?

It's sad. When we die, who will warn our online friends about it? To this day, I'm still really concerned about a rather unstable friend of mine who quit the internet for good (it was for the best) and I think about her daily, wondering if she is still with us and what's been happening.
My advice to everyone is to avoid online relationships, including the friendship kind. Literally no real long-term advantages.