A couple weeks back, I ran into this channel on Youtube. For those who don’t feel like clicking, it’s essentially a vlog of a woman in Japan where she talks about stuff in her life. Mostly highlighting recent things that are rough in her life.
I felt a twinge of empathy seeing titles feature words like “no friends” and “lonely” While I’d seen plenty of people on social media like Twitter who say this to hundreds of replies, it felt a little more real with someone putting themselves in front of a camera (although not fully) It felt more like a plea from someone looking for a genuine connection, in my eyes.
I started to develop feelings for her.
I recognized right off the bat that it was pretty illogical. I knew it was mostly parasocial attachment. Even if she was responding to my comments, there was little chance I was anything significant. There was little chance I would even become someone significant. I knew all these feelings would get me was heartbreak when I had to inevitably face the truth. Yet I let myself dream.
Where the realization hit me that I probably would never be anything more, was when I started seeing donations in her comments. People giving her anywhere from 10-100 dollars. It wasn’t a lot of people, but it made me wonder who I was to her. Especially in the face of others who gave her money.
And it’s not that I would say that she only cared about money. I don’t know enough about her to say things like that. Heck, I can’t even say whether she’s a real person. It’s just realistically, what kind of relationship can bloom from a few comments on the internet. Especially with someone who’s getting comments from many other people, some of which are going as far to give her money.
I’ve often thought about doing a Youtube and/or livestreaming as a method to combat my loneliness. However, one of the things I’ve always thought about was, assuming I’d even gain an audience(which seems unlikely), how would you even process relationships? You can’t be good friends with every single person you come across online. You can’t make promises to keep up with just anyone that comes across your doorstep
Maybe I’m just focusing only on the potential negatives. In any event we’re getting off-topic.
Going forward, I probably will have to try and distance myself from them and break my lingering attachment. Stop looking so much for “what-ifs” and start focusing on things I can actually control.. Maybe