How Do We Know Our Friends Are Safe?

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thanks Kandinsky, much appreciated.

I know that ExPat enjoys his mountainous journeys off the grid.

That's also great to hear that someone has spoken to FF.
I was worried I must admit.

Thanks again.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Just got your message... Friend request pending.

:p

a reply to: Kandinsky

Someone I know has heard from FF last month.

I'm glad to hear that. I'd heard that she had health problems and I was wondering, worried actually. I saw a thread a while back where somebody was asking about her.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thank you! I hope she gets my PM. If you have any line of communication, please let her know she is missed.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: Kandinsky

Thank you! I hope she gets my PM. If you have any line of communication, please let her know she is missed.

I'll pass it on to someone who has been in touch

I have a few personal friends "off" the boards. Of course, we met on the boards.

We have followed each other through our life journeys (so far) and I would miss them if that friendship ended.

I think we just connected on a level of some sort. It is odd as we don't have THAT much in common in our personal lives.

Much like a poster above use my real name/variation of my ATS name on most boards.

I think it is necessary to develop THAT trust or I don't know, you just get a feeling that the person is legit (not crazy) and move slowly...

Rambling.........we just have to believe they are safe and unfortunately sometimes we care more for them than they do for us (our online "friends"). Such is life...

a reply to: TrueBrit

We don't know that they are safe, unless you are one of the few that can tell at a distance.

A good example was one of my real-life friends: One minute they were a friend, and BAM! next, they vanished from everyone's life on my side. I knew she wasn't dead, but the days dragged on. I prayed almost every night for 4-6 years straight that she was happy, and that she'd at least come back and say "Hi" once in a while. I even went as far as to do some "internet sleuthing" (well, I am an IT-guy with a passion for computers and psychology, so finding someone online? Easy), and discovered that she was indeed happy and making a life for herself. As I mentioned in several of my posts, she recently came back.

My point to all of this is: People can vanish into thin air without warning. The only way you'd know if they were safe and okay is by checking in with them on occasion, and pray they respond at some point. I don't advise waiting as long as I did (my exception was...well, we were close; close to the point I knew without a doubt that I'd see her again).

I'll also put it this way: Should something ever happen to me, let's just say even someone that did a picture search would be able to find my account.

-foss

There's been people I've known around here just disappear in the past, and I've often wondered what has happened and if they are ok? and though am not really close to anyone here right now, there's people I'd have the same thoughts about should anything happen or they decide to leave without notice. That's one of the downsides to being part of a community like this.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I'm glad you are back my man.

I've read so many of your posts.

good to see you.

I've got a Hotmail account in a made-up name specifically for joining forums and keeping in touch with people I meet on-line.

I think people fall into 3 categories: Those who stay in touch, those who don't and nutters that I drop like a hot brick.

It can be a bit hurtful when someone you felt close to stops responding to your emails, but that's their prerogative. Maybe they thought I was the nutter

It's worth mentioning Chatango here. You can set up your own chat room and invite your online friends to join. It's really easy and creates another line of communication.

a reply to: Kandinsky

it's generally the case that we come and go and our passing isn't always noticed...the best we can hope is that we're remembered fondly.

A good truism for life.

a reply to: Reverbs

As mentioned already, I am not leaving here. At all. Ever. I will always appreciate and be honoured by my association with this most august body of thinkers, tinkerers, conspiracy watchers and intellectual rebels.

One does not turn up ones nose at such things, especially now, in an age where good sense and logic are so absent from the affairs of daily life.

I was really concerned about one member, to the point where I started a thread to see if anyone knew if he was ok. The thread got trashed because apparently it's against T&C to do such a thing. (I wasn't even buddy buddy with this guy, it's just that some of his posts kind of read as suicidal)

My only suggestion is that if you find a member that you really 'click' with, PM them and get their real world contact info. If even just an e-mail address. So that if they ever disappear you can contact them.

I have another concerning question (sorry I'm pretty new here and I'm just curious): do anyone here ever heard of a member who died because they "denied ignorance" too much? I mean, did they post things that were so inconvenient to "someone" that they might have been - well - killed?
I'm just asking because this is a forum for people who are uncomfortable with the status quo, and sometimes they might just know (or suspect or speak) too much.

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

I know what you mean.

I am concerned for a specific individual, and I do have their email address. They have not been seen in the locations they most often frequent online since the tenth of last month, and have not responded to emails.

I did the same as Kandinsky and check my friends list/wall and yes... lots of good members either banned, died or just never came back.

Pretty sad really.



#Good friends we've had, oh, good friends we've lost
Along the way, yeah!
In this great future, you can't forget your past;
So dry your tears, I say.#

Just stopping in, to say that it has now been some months since last I spoke with the individual in question, some months since anyone at her regular haunts has seen her, or even since she last logged in, and I have too few data points to make any significant in roads into locating that individual, and ascertaining that they are safe, or dead, or somewhere in between.

All I can do, is look up at the moon of an evening, and hope that she still has the capacity to gaze at it also. We all orbit the same star, and we all do so under the gaze of the same moon... That is all I can do.