22/M/Nevereverland - I want a genuine, long-term friendship (lots of words in this post)

First things first. I’ve had literally dozens of people ghost or fade on me for god knows what reason (cause they never told me, pretending to get along perfectly, until they disappeared), or add me on skype only to block me there before we had a chance to talk properly. And honestly, my heart breaks every time when that happens, cause every time I was ready to be a true friend to them. So if you think that kind of behaviour is in any way acceptable and not horribly cruel, then I beg you, please get the fuck out and never message me.

So, now that I’ve lost the great majority of people reading this – you, who stayed, hello. Nice to have you here. Come, sit down. Have a cookie. Let me introduce myself.

I'm a long-time science nerd who suddenly decided that he wants to be an artist. My hobbies include (but are not limited to): drawing, writing, watching anime, making horrible, out-of-tune sounds on a guitar, accumulating useless knowledge, and trying to prove that aliens are using Einstein-Rosen Bridges to steal my socks from the laundry.

I like stories. Stories are all around us, inside of us, constantly weaving and intertwining, writing new chapters with every breath you take. I like escaping from reality by experiencing stories, in a variety of mediums. I like interacting with people by exchanging our stories. I like standing in the middle of a never-stopping crowd, looking at the covers of a thousand stories that I will never read. I mean… most of them are super-boring, but I can imagine they're not, right?

All through my teen years half the people around me played League of Legends, and I was like “That game looks so dumb, I will never play that”. Recently I started playing it and now I can’t stop. pleasesendhelp.jpg

I like things which are subtle but sharp, elusive but vivid, blunt in their intricacy. And dank memes.

I’m a curious person, and I have a habit of googling every stupid question that comes to my mind.

I don’t hate small talk, but I hate when it dominates a conversation. I want to talk about things that matter. Things that matter to you, or to me. Whatever those may be. I want to jump to the personal subjects, the hard subjects. The ones where you leave yourself vulnerable, the ones where you risk getting hurt or misunderstood. That’s how you really get to know a person. Here's an alpaca.

Real talk: I have ME/CFS, a very debilitating, uncurable disease. As much as I dream of traveling the world and doing many awesome things with my life, the reality is that getting out of bed each day is a challenge. I live with my parents, don't go outside, most of my time is spent staring at the ceiling or at a computer screen, trying to distract myself from the loneliness, because all of my old friends have forgotten about me. I desperately try to pursue as much of my passions as I can, but a day where I add 1000 words to my novel draft is a rare blessing, not the norm. I'm probably one of the most genuinely optimistic people you'll ever meet, but that does not mean deluding myself that my life doesn't suck when it sucks. And right now it sucks, to the point where I hover on the edge of depression. I also had to learn the hard way that no, you can’t actually achieve anything if you just try hard enough.

I’m looking for actual, good friends. And I’m gonna write exactly what that means to me, so there’s no confusion:

• Good communication. If we’re not completely sure what the other person means, we ask, not assume. If we see a misunderstanding, we correct it every time. We talk – not try to read each other’s mind, and not expect the other person to read ours.
• Mature conflict-solving. If either of us have a problem with the other, we tell them openly, not sit on it until it destroys the whole friendship. If there’s a conflict, we have a conversation about it, trying our best to understand the other side’s feelings, and come up with a compromise that we both can agree on.
• Not expecting the other person to be perfect. We all have faults, and we’re never gonna get along 100% of the time. I’ve had enough of people who disappear when the slightest issue arises, instead of trying to solve it or work around it.
• Being open minded. Being able to say “Hey, I don’t really get that one weird hobby of yours, but if it makes you happy then I respect it”. Not judging people by stereotypes or generalizations.
• Empathy. Knowing that people are different and care about different things and are hurt by different things and not trying to always extrapolate your own experience onto others, but rather to understand theirs.
• Having time to hang out. I am sick of all of my “friends” saying “I can’t talk now, I’m too busy” literally every time I message them. If you made it so that all your life is work or school and you don’t have time for a social life – that’s your decision, but don’t message me then. I’m not saying we have to talk every day, but a few hours per month is not enough.
• Actually putting effort into the conversation. I am equally sick of people who reply to my questions as short as possible, never ask their own, never tell any stories, never start a new topic when the last one dies out, and never message me first.
• Voicechat. We can start with text at the beginning, if you really want to, but in the long run I really hate text interaction – it breeds misunderstandings and doesn’t feel very human. We can do video too, if you want. As for the platform – skype, discord, messenger – you can pick.

If we’re gonna be friends, you will get all the above things from me (and more), but you have to at least be ready to try your best doing all of them too, if you don’t do that automatically like I do.

And obviously, if things don’t work out between us, and we’re not able to fix them, we talk about it and part ways. But I want to meet people who are at least willing to seriously try.

So if that’s you – send me a PM. Tell me about yourself in it, or link to your own post if you have one.

I can’t promise I will be interested in everyone who messages me, but I can promise I will reply to you, as long as I see that you actually read my post.