When an online friend dies
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
United States
April 22, 2012 3:25pm CST
Does it bother you as much as if it was a person you knew in person? Sad to say I just lost an online friend last week. This brings it up to 2 people I've never met IRL and 1 that I met who used to work w/ hubby but moved out of state but kept in contact via the net.
Even worse is that of the three they passed on all before they were even 40. It leaves a person sad, confused, and what was going on beyond what they wrote online KWIM? But in a way far enough removed it doesn't bother you as much as if I would of known them IRL in a way. Though being removed from their real life you don't always get to find out the details of what exactly happened.
Have you every lost a friend online?
4 people like this
19 responses
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
22 Apr 12
I've lost several online friends in a guitar forum I've belonged to since the mid-90s. We've all become quite close and we're mostly in our 50s and up although we have lost some young ones. We've gone through marriages, divorces, births, family deaths with each other for over 15 years! I grieve for them as I would a close friend. We lost someone just recently to cancer and it was as much of a blow as if it would have been a friend IRL.
We impact other people just as much online sometimes as IRL. If we give freely of our hearts it doesn't matter if we've met or not, we're close all the same.
2 people like this
@forary2021 (50)
• United States
22 Apr 12
i feel you. this happened to me once before. i was really close to this one guy and then he passed away. it hurt me but i got over it quick because i didn't really know him.
2 people like this
@jillhill (37354)
• United States
23 Apr 12
They have went away....and you miss them but I can't say that I would grieve as much as someone I have known and spent physical time with like going out for dinner etc...but yes....miss them very much...I think. When I think about some of my close friends here...if something happened to them like ambiepam I would want to go to say goodbye...
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
22 Apr 12
I've known a few to pass. I wasn't super close with them, and knew they were old and not doing well. I think my reaction would depend on how close I was to them. I agree that those you see regularly hit you hardest.
2 people like this
@MandaLee (3764)
• United States
22 Apr 12
Yes, I have. Another friend that I met online is dying of COPD. We have been friends for several years. We talk on the phone alot. She hopes to meet me in person before she passes. It is so sad and does bother me because it is the loss of a life. I am so sorry for your loss.
2 people like this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
23 Apr 12
Yes, I have. It's kind of strange, how we can get so attached to people we have never met in real life, but we do. The internet is a strange medium of communication. I worry about some of my online friends and pray for them, knowing that if anything ever happened to them, I would never know why or how or even if.
1 person likes this
@rogue13xmen13 (14403)
• United States
23 Apr 12
If it is a person that I have been talking to for a long time, then yes, I will be really sad about it. I will wonder what happened, and what they were really like in real life. I have lost one or two friends online and it wasn't easy. It definitely left me with an empty feeling.
1 person likes this
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
22 Apr 12
It's a different kind of pain, but it's still painful. It's not so much whether I've goten to know them offline or not, but how WELL I know them on or off line. I have never met one of my best friends, Donald, IRL, but if he were to die, I'd be devistated. We have shared a lot over the years.
1 person likes this
@jazel_juan (15746)
• Philippines
23 Apr 12
I have not lost anyone- so far..but i hope no one yet...
But i have lost a friend in real life and i guess the pain is the same no matter what though as there will part of us that will be empty.
1 person likes this
@OpinionatedLady (5965)
• United States
23 Apr 12
It is sad and I pray for them but I have none so close as to effect me greatly...that said if I did become very close to one I beleive it would hurt as though I knew them in person.
1 person likes this
@Cherish14 (2693)
• Philippines
23 Apr 12
Hi there,
i don't really have friends online, maybe just here on mylot. i talk to one person online and i haven't met this person ever before. my friends are also abroad so the only way we can communicate is online.
i would feel really sad and shocked if that happened to me. i hope it never happens to me 
i love all of them so much
i love all of them so much 1 person likes this
@stary1 (6612)
• United States
22 Apr 12
3SnuggleBunnies ..In the years I have been chatting on BB's I have lost several friends who I never meet in person..I took their deaths very personally and grieved as much as if I had meet them in person. They were my friends...their passing was very very sad...
1 person likes this
@ellie333 (21016)
•
23 Apr 12
Hi SnuggleBunnies, I have lost a close myLot friend who I did manage to meet offline also and was really upset over it and this happened only recently and that was after an 18 month battle with cancer bless. It is hard and we miss them but perhaps not like we would a friend who we are around all the time. Huggles. Ellie :(
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
25 Apr 12
As much time as I spend online, I guess it is amazing to say that I've never lost a friend that I know only from being online and talking to them online.
Now, I have had a lot of friends that I've never met IRL that have had friends and family members that have passed away and I do hurt for them when they are going through those events in their lives just like I would for the people that I do know in person.
I think that depending on how much time I spent talking to them online, I would grieve them just as I have my friends that I know in person.
@bjc66bjc (6730)
• United States
23 Apr 12
wow, 3snugglebunnies, I am so sorry that you lost your
online friend...I have to say that I've never lost an
online friend, but I really have a couple of people that
I have never met but on line and if they would die, I think
I would be devasted..for some of the people I met on line
make me smile alot more than people I have face to face
converations with...
So I am sure its geniune to feel sad and a great lost...
Sorry again!!!!!
@thepooloflust (163)
• United States
23 Apr 12
It would hurt me just as much (and depending on who we're talking about maybe even more) considering a lot of my online friends I met before I was a teenager (before I even met ANY of my current offline friends), and I was going through some really rough patches... they were there for me in a way few other people were. Two or three online friends particular I've never met (but would really like to) I would be crushed if something bad happened to them.
@honest_efforts100 (1607)
• India
24 Sep 12
I did have the misfortune of losing one of my online friends. He was not under 40, by any means, but it was still very sad all the same. He was one of the members in my World of Warcraft guild: “Shattered Dawn”. I had known him for years, and I considered him one of my closest friends, though physically he was farthest away. RIP Caelmah.
