maybe on some level I’m afraid to make new friends because of everything that happened on fedi

@winter snail friend !!!!!!! ï@_

@modnarwave !!!!!!!!!!!

@winter i think it's important to remember the average fedi power user whos posting things other than like "i just ate a nice burger yum" is usually a deeply socially maladjusted freak disconnected from how real people live. Anyone spending more time online than offline usually has some kind of major malfunction that means they cant do the latter and overcompensate with the former.

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins I don’t think that’s true at all a lot of people are just socially isolated like I was for years there, especially a lot of trans and ND folks in places where offline social interaction isn’t safe or even possible. I don’t really think that stereotype of internet users helps anyone, the problems fedi has gone through are specific and can be named and analyzed rather than just being written off as these are bad people…

@winter

> lot of people are just socially isolated like I was for years there, especially a lot of trans and ND folks in places where offline social interaction isn’t safe or even possible

This is true but doesnt really challenge what i said, a lot of people are just literally unable to socialise (and like you say sometimes the reason for this is beyond their control) and this socially stunts them, online socialising isn't an effective substitution, the only way to heal is by being around people irl.

@winter i know im a broken record on this, but consider volunteering at some charity shop that lgbt friendly, like at mine i present as a gay man and everyone's chill and two of my covolunteers (one current, one former) just on the day i volunteer (idk how many there are on other days) are openly trans girlmoding mtf + boymoding ftm

@georgia @winter 🫂

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter to me this reads "just don't be traumatized", which, like, do you have the rest of the instructions on how to do that?

For myself, part of the difficulty is I do not feel safe even in most lgbt spaces. I have learned (through experience) that lgbt-friendly frequently does not extend to manish trans women. I don't even feel very safe in trans-centric spaces (I mostly thank fedi for this).

A person can't pick their trauma responses, and broadly speaking they can't ignore them. My lizard brain doesn't care what the rest of me thinks, if it doesn't feel safe it's going to do its thing. Between being hyper-aware of my surroundings and my pulse doubling, it's exhausting. (It's also not very conducive to good socializing either.)

Plus, to winter's point, a lot of folks on here don't live near queer-friendly spaces or have any practical way to get to one. I used to have a friend who lived in rural Georgia (state). A drive to somewhere even possibly queer-friendly would be 4 hours hour round-trip and about $40 or so in gas (about £30).

@ginny @winter yeah im sorry, you're right Ginny, im posturing as always

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter Ah yes, the LGBT friendly charity shop in... fucking Russia?

"be around people" lmao. Not all of us live in the first world. Many of us have reasons to distrust people in meatspace.

The internet is the only place where I can not mask.

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter Before anyone says "just leave Russia": no, i'm more or less safe here as long as I stay deeply closeted, and i have career potential here so I'm not leaving. Why would I anyways. To interact with people in meatspace? But I don't want to.

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter My whole plan for life is to basically hunker down, make decent money as an engineer, and silently hope things improve over here-- but not for my benefit because even if a new communist revolution took Russia, I'd still stay silent and closeted IRL. No point when I am happier online.

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter But then again I am literally an ultra-introverted sociopath so I guess I'm not really representative of the average person this sort of post is aimed at.

@MossGrowsOnNormanRuins @winter I guess there are people who really would be happier and healthier with meatspace communication over online communication. That is alien to me but I understand on some level.