At what point would you say you know a TFFer well?

[Setzertrancer]

So I was wondering when you would consider yourself to know a TFFer well. Depends on your definition of well I guess. Would it be if you see the other person a lot in threads you post in. Or would it be if the person sends you private messages on a fairly regular basis. Or would it be when the person starts talking to you on a Messenger, every week, day, hour or minute. Or maybe you think the person would have to share a video link with you and have a good meaningfull conversation with you. Maybe you might not consider youself to know the person well until they confess their love to you and then want to marry you and leave their kids and wife or husband behind and then go and live on the moon to avoid having to socialise with anyone but you.

Uh...

sorry went on a bit of a tirade there, heh.

Also how many people on these forums do you think you know well and why?

[Neo Necron]

At the end of the day, how's it any different from how well you know somebody in the offline world? That's the way I see it for myself anyway.

You can know somebody with or without talking to them, only in different ways. You can observe their actions offline and online, and know of them that way. Also you can talk to people offline and online, and personally get to know them that way.
However much you consider you know somebody, be it personally or impersonally, I'd measure it the same on TFF as I would in reality.

[psychosyd]

Its pretty much determined by the fact of whether or not you are friends with them on facebook.

Because you are not REAL friends until you are friends on facebook and if you are friends on facebook, you need to semi know each other and that means you know somebody pretty well.

So anybody on my list of facebook friends are TFF people I feel I know well, or did know well because I found out I am friends with Nightshade, and I never knew I was friends with Nightshade on facebook and I don't think we know each other that well anymore.

But take Cesar for instance, he came to my birthday bash LAN party. I also knew TimonMeera and Tsunami pretty well because I introduced them to TFF when we took speech together in high school, but also notice they don't post here anymore.

Yeah.

Find me on facebook and we can know each other well.

... im going to go make a TFF group on facebook

[Anachlirium]

I don't think knowing people is very important, to tell the truth. Therefore I do not rely on it. There are people here that I am very close to indeed and certainly do not know much about them at all.

I think a relationship of any sort relies more on chemistry than anything you know about them. I mean, you could know everything about somebody and still strongly dislike them.

So I'm not sure how many people I'd say I know well. But even so, I really don't make a point of getting to know them well.

[Chez Daja]

In the older days, I cared a lot more about getting to know everyone, however it's not much of a total necessity these days now that I'm out in the big wide world getting a proper education.

This isn't to say I don't sometimes see an interesting person on the Internet and think "yes! We could be friends!" . I know many people from TFF, some very well, some not as well. Most I like, some I don't. I'm not as accquainted to brand new people and those from about late 2005 onwards, however I do have many good friends and many people that I admire about the forums.

I know somebody well when I talk to you almost everyday (even three days a week), or have done at some point and know that we have some things in common and can relate to each other. If you can take my terrible sense of humour with a ribbon in one hand and have a laugh about it, then that's good, because my sense of humour, or lack of, is an aspect I use to break the ice and be your friend at first.

It's becoming more and more of a rare occurence for me now, but only because I don't put my backbone into having it be the most important thing in my life anymore. If you want to know me, PM me and we'll get talking.

If not, I'm fine with talking with you on the boards in various threads.

[CLOUD]

I can't say I know anyone well.

I talk with a few TFFers on a regular basis, even if I don't have the time to talk to them as much as i used to.

The thing is that no one can say they know other people from the forum just by their posts, by the PMs the sent to one another, or even by the time they spend chatting over IM. In my opinion, unless you've met a member in real life & seen his/her reactions & behavior to every important or little thing, saying "hell yeah, I know him" is, if not a lie, something you haven't thought of that well.

I can't even call the TFFers I know my buddies. It's not that I have something against them. I do know a bit about them, but comparing them to my friends over here is impossible. The relationship one can have over the net with other people, if I can call it a relationship isn't that serious. For instance, I can't say that I've fallen in love with someone whom I haven't even met just by talking to her on MSN.

To cut a long story short, I don't think I know anyone from TFF, just as they don't know me; some say I'm ok, but they don't know me that well... Having the other person tell you things about them doesn't mean you get to really know them. I think that you get to know someone through his/her live actions & webcams & stuff don't count. The internet doesn't really help us get closer to people we don't know beforehand.

[Cheesevixen]

I can't say I would ever know if I really know them. Heck, I can't say that I really know the people in the real world. ANyone in my life really. People have too many secrets. Espeacially the ones they say they don't. Now an days, with all the gore an sickness, how can you really ever know someone?

[Angantyr]

The point in which you know anybody well imo is when you can answer their questions or at least address their questions straight away ie you know basically how their mind works like with how they will reply and what way they will react.

For example if say I bring up something that people have a different perspective on me I know one of my friends will get kind of emotional so I try not to pick it up or agree to disagree kind of thing where as another one of them will become quiet. Other person here I sometimes get the feeling I'm boring them so I try to cut back on it

Also I completely agree about the chemistry thing, there's a few people out there that I do not agree with but we get on with real well. Like there are kinds of personalities that I get on with in different ways... basically I think its more or less about how well you get on that matters rather than how much information you know about them. Knowing how somebody "is" is truly knowing them well.

[Silver]

Firstly I believe that this depends on what exactly you meant by knowing a person well.
In some ways it's possible to get to know another TFFer well, if they reveal enough of themselves through their net persona.
In other ways I believe you'd actually have to meet and spend time with a TFFer in the flesh to know them well.

And sometimes you can think you know a person well, but even if you know them for years or something, they might do something completely radical and then you know you really didn't know the person that well at all.

I'll say one thing though. I know a couple of people both on TFF and from elsewhere who seem like they'd be more revealing about themselves online than off. I guess they feel more open with expressing themselves to someone they may never meet a long distance away, than someone they see every day who lives down the road.

Personally, I think I know some TFFers enough for their friendship and chats to count a lot to me, but I get the feeling a lot of them would have unexpected things if we ever did meet in real life. Just due to the preconceived ideas you get about someone while online of course.

[Govinda]

I don't think you can ever really 'know' someone over the internet.

Thus, I don't really know any of you. I know more about some of you than others, but I've never met any of you, so I can't say anymore. Until I hear you speak, I don't know who you are.