Breaks from the Internet are increasingly longer and feel better. Returns to the Internet are increasingly shorter and feel worse. It's beginning to look like offline is the future for those of us hoping to retain or repair what spirit remains. The magic won't return. If I decide to seek companionship for hobbies I'm at the point I'll pay to advertise in shop windows over trying online. The Internet is too easy to sink back into, despite its harm, because it's everywhere and requires no exertion, sitting in a chair and pressing keys to receive some acknowledgement that you exist. The Internet is a self-imposed torture chamber filled with unavoidable lunatics ranting and raving about tragedies and outrages which have no affect on the lunatic's life because they are almost always not local or regional to the lunatic, or even in a language the lunatic understands.

>>2322 >>2324 I share yours sentiments, and I've also come to accept the solution of moving on and seeking new pastures. Times change, and we change with them, as the adage goes. Now that the innocence of youth has dried up, it's becoming increasingly harder to experience such instances of cheeriness as those so promptly produced by our memory while remembering the early years on the net. It used to feel like a refuge. At present, however, it feels more like yet another torturous manifestation of routine and inertia and social engineering. Engaging in it provides some cursory relief, but usually leaves a sour aftertaste, and I don't expect that sensation to change anytime soon, much less considering the current cultural tendencies.

Wasted my youth indoors fucking around on imageboards with people who hated me with nothing good to show for it. All I ended up with is a sense all other forms of communication don't feel "right", and a reflexive nostalgia for the ephemeral culture of "the old days" even though they sucked. I couldn't change with the times. So almost a decade ago now I exclusively started hanging out on tiny, dead, or dying IBs as my sole form of communication. The more insulated, the more they seemed like a still frame of how it used to be. Magicchan the primary one. When that went down, what came next for me was just to quit. For little more than a year I had no contact with anyone. As long as I just did things I actually liked doing, like playing games or reading manga I did actually feel better than when I would post on the net. Though it's likely different for you. For me socialization on the net has never really been something rationally undertaken because it benefited. Just more of a animal instinct I can't override even if it is to my detriment. I don't know if anyone else here is like that, I used think that some mage types were but that may just have been projection.

I just browse a couple of websites and even those I have no real purpose visiting. Everything is either kids or people with kids or sex or money. It's all so alienating. But I guess I never really had a place there anyway, I always felt like an outsider no matter sites I went to. Going offline would be great but I keep finding excuses not to.

>>2327 I feel the same way you do. I visit several IBs daily, but very rarely post or connect with their users. Once in a while I find something funny or interesting, but that doesn't really justify the habit.

>>2326 >Wasted my youth indoors fucking around on imageboards with people who hated me Why do you feel like people on imageboards hated you? Were you avatarfagging, tripping, or had a really distince retarded posting style. I've legit been gangstalked just for not being part of discord groups and not affiliated with anyone made me an easy target I guess.

>>2344 Sorry I do not communicate well. The users of those sites didn't really "know" me or who I was. They hated losers like me. They would have hated me if they knew me, but because of the anonymity they didn't. Only when I made the mistake of revealing anything about myself did they know to show their displeasure at my existence. We were not friends, or comrades, or like-minded, or similar, or anything of that sort. We were enemies calling out to each other separated only by a thin fog of war.

Online: bad loneliness, e-schizophrenia from bombardment of outside images/sounds/thoughts. Offline: good loneliness, quiet mind.

Really feeling that thread, ouch. >>2327 > going offline would be great but I keep finding excuses not to. I don't even come up with excuses to stay online, I just don't know what to do offline so I am online. Honestly, I hate it. The only things that are still enjoyable for me is downloading something I was searching for, looking up some information and the few posts a year when I feel really bad and try to cling to some stranger on an imageboard, who more or less understands me.