Because I love Myself Too Much

“As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.”
~ Diogenes


For several months I have been a member of a gay social networking site called thingbox. I first joined the site to make friends and just connect with people. I had been living on a floor in my friends flat in South London and at the time the site was something new and exciting and would help keep my mind off the fact that I was living on spare change and sleeping on a floor.

I made some good friends and met some interesting characters. I also found myself semi addicted to the attention I received and baffled when there wasn’t any.

I do not know why but I needed self reassurance from these virtual personalities that I was indeed a worthy person. In the end I found myself doing things, saying things, expecting things that I normally wouldn’t do; wouldn’t want to do.

On the site you have an option of putting up pictures of yourself in a normal gallery, an adult gallery, and a private gallery. I only had a normal gallery with pictures of me and my friends and from film shoots. I saw it as an equivalent to facebook or myspace.. a place for friends. But after the attention started to wane I took a leap and put some up in my private gallery which I invited several of my online “friends” to view and the attention was reinstated.

Recently I have been having a conversation with one of the friends on there. He has recently put up pictures in his adult gallery which really belong in his private gallery. Now obviously I don’t know him that well but it seemed very out of character for him so I asked him why. In few words, he wanted the attention.

I told him not to let anyone change him, especially the socially inept, emotionally stunted morons that populated the site. It was then that I realised I had changed. I changed my expectations for why I joined in the first place, I change my view of men, and most importantly my self esteem changed. I needed to be validated by people I had never met and that was just unacceptable.

I have cancelled my membership and there is a certain relief that I feel which I can only describe as having control.

I have made good (real life) friends from the site and I will continue to be friends with them, I don’t need a website for that – it’s what the real world is for.