Asklemmy

43940 readers

774 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

122

Do you ever feel the "dormant person feeling"? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by lemuria@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The dormant person feeling is a feeling I find myself having on the Internet often. Casually browsing the Internet, I find myself reading through threads and websites that don't look like they've been updated since 2009, or 2010, or ${currentYear - 10}. Profiles that haven't posted in so long either.

When I see just how long ago their last activity was, it gives me the feeling, which I can only describe as a mix of concern, curiosity, and empathy. In my head, I go "I wonder how they are doing now", and "are they alive and well?". Sometimes I find myself "investigating" them or looking them up to see if they are still alive just so I can satiate this feeling of mine.

Do other people experience the dormant person feeling too? Is it wrong to have such a feeling? But hey, if I feel the dormant person feeling, it does show that I do have empathy for strangers, a good quality, I suppose.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 4 months ago

I used to get that feeling now and then, not a need to "investigate" them, but a small sense of lonliness seeing that a place that was bustling with conversation and community isn't anymore.

I think it lessens as you age though.

There are countless situations in life that can cause people to move on from a group, hobby, social circle, forum, etc. I'd argue that most of them are perfectly normal and healthy, like having kids, moving, finding new hobbies, changing jobs, life events changing free time, making new friends, finding a new partner, etc.

Sometimes people find their way back, sometimes they don't.

People don't stay the same forever, so their interests and how they spend their time won't either. I think life would be very boring if that wasn't the case.