Originally Posted by Elspode

Yeah, I said it...is it *real*? Our relationships, I mean (this is, after all, the relationships thread).

Few of us know each other or have ever met IRL. Essentially, to one another, we are all letters on a screen and little else. Oh, yeah...some personalities come across loud and clear. Some of those personalities are easier to stomach than others. Some are more interesting than others. Some are more irritating than others, some apparently more glamorous, still others more attractive, literate, intriguing, provocative, and lots of other adjectives...just like reality. But...

...if we are just batting around words here, with few ever having to face another Cellarite and look into their eyes - Is any of this *real*? If I tell LJ he's a cocksucker, does he get pissed, and do I feel sorry for being out of line? If TW propounds on the morality of international politics and Kagen tells him he's a left wing weenie, is anyone responsible for their words and "actions"?

I guess what I'm looking for here is this: how much weight/value/import do *you*, as a member of this virtual community, place upon your interactions here? Do your feelings get hurt when someone nails your ass? Do you actually feel supported when you open up your guts and let people know that things suck for you and you could use some strokes/input? Do you visualize a real, flesh and blood person sitting somewhere at a computer, carefully considering their words (as I am desperately trying to do now), and ending up making you happy/sad/angry/confused?

As in real life (and magickal life as well), things have only as much power as you give them, but don't you need to give a certain amount of empowerment to what goes on here on The Cellar to make it worth bothering with at all?