CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE CHEWERS › The Chewers Catch-All › A New Internet Phenomenon - "The Lacuna Stranger"
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

A New Internet Phenomenon - "The Lacuna Stranger"

post #1 of 17
10/24/07 at 10:57pm
Thread Starter 
A new kind of stranger has been born of instant messaging. The "I don't know how your screenname got into my buddylist" stranger. It's like a digital cousin of the "I hooked up with you once before" acquaintence, but not as awkward, serious, and far more nebulous, but the connections are there.

It's actually like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You know that you knew them, and you can assume, that at one point, you liked the person enough to put them in your buddylist, but any actual memories of the time you spent together is gone. Maybe you can try to see if you can be friends again, or maybe there's a reason you haven't talked to the person in two years. That's up to you.

Assignment: Find one of these strangers, which I will hereby entitle "Lacuna Strangers", and talk to them. At worst, it'll be a strange dip in the past. At best, you got a new friend.
Reply
post #2 of 17
10/24/07 at 11:20pm
If I actually logged into AIM, I could probably give you a list of these.
Reply
post #3 of 17
10/25/07 at 12:10am
Facebook is bad for this, as half-remembered acquaintances from elementary school suddenly want to be your pals.
Reply
post #4 of 17
10/25/07 at 1:57am
Won't work for me. I hate people.
Reply
post #5 of 17
10/25/07 at 3:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Jim Slade
Facebook is bad for this, as half-remembered acquaintances from elementary school suddenly want to be your pals.
I hate this. "Oh, hi. Yeah, wow it's been a long time. Well, since we last talked lets see... well I went to college. Yeah, yeah that was pretty cool. How about you? Oh, divorced and had a kid? And you lay tile? And you still live with Grandma? ....does she still make that pizza we used to eat? LOL! Yeah, no, we should go get a drink sometime. I would love to re-engage myself in the downward shitspiral that is your life."

I had crappy friends in High School, I guess is the summary here.

EDIT: On topic, I accumulated these strangers like mad when I still played lots of online games about 5 years ago. My Yahoo list was full of every random sorta nice player that wandered into my TFC server, plus past/present clan members and various people associated with the different leagues. I'd have people in there for months who's only connection to me was that I might have needed a server password from him once.

I've got a few people in my MSN list from college who only got added because my college was sort of small and we just kinda added anyone we knew. I do not give a fuck about these people, and I expect to be very confused when they ask me "what's up!" in a few years.
Reply
post #6 of 17
10/25/07 at 4:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by donde
Won't work for me. I hate people.
What he said. I can barely be bothered to speak to the people I already know.
Reply
post #7 of 17
10/25/07 at 5:37am
Only two times I ever tried this it was Korean guys trying to sell me shoes. They got my MSN details from these boards.
Also: Yes to the I hate people thing.
Reply
post #8 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:17pm
Yeah, I don't get this too much because I will actually reject friend/buddy requests from people unless I have a specific reason to want to keep in touch with them. I've never understood people who have 250 numbers in their cell phone or 596 Facebook friends.
Reply
post #9 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Jim Slade
Facebook is bad for this, as half-remembered acquaintances from elementary school suddenly want to be your pals.
Also known as that waste of time called Classmates.com.
Reply
post #10 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:27pm
This girl I dated in high school added me as a friend on Facebook yesterday. I wonder how shit like that happens. It certainly never occurs to me to look up people I knew a long time ago.
Reply
post #11 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:29pm
I used to have Trillian until I realized that I didn't know or ended up blocking 90% of the people on my list. I've deleted it now and my only "chat" client at the time being is Google chat, which is linked right into my email account. And even then I don't turn it on as much as I used to...

Which is strange, because I used to be such a chat hound. Huh. I hadn't really given the shift in my online behavior much thought, until now.
Reply
post #12 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:37pm
Thread Starter 
Through various websites, message boards, acquaintances of friends of acquaintances, I'd probably say that, of the 200 something people on my buddylist, I only remember who half of them are, and of them I speak to maybe 15 on any kind of regular basis. Yet, there they are, tons of names, people I once talked to (maybe once, maybe often), and the only clues I have to their identities (if I ever really knew them well at all) are these esoteric screennames. edifythisheart? Sesa22? What does it mean?
Reply
post #13 of 17
10/25/07 at 2:42pm
Well, a quick google search turns THIS up for edify my heart.

I think you broke someone's heart, Patrick.
Reply
post #14 of 17
10/25/07 at 3:19pm
I was hoping the lacuna stranger was some sort of new masturbation technique.

Huh...
Reply
post #15 of 17
10/25/07 at 3:27pm
This doesn't involve strangulation. I'm not interested.
Reply
post #16 of 17
10/26/07 at 1:26pm
I thought this was going to be some knock off Lacuna Coil, like some internet video series.

Boy was I waaaaaaaaaay off.
Reply
post #17 of 17
10/26/07 at 2:46pm
I thought it was going to be about giving yourself The Stranger while thinking of the chick in Lacuna Coil. Also way off.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: The Chewers Catch-All
CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE CHEWERS › The Chewers Catch-All › A New Internet Phenomenon - "The Lacuna Stranger"