When did talking online get so akward

Is it just me or does nobody know how to actually talk anymore? Like have a conversation. A normal, weird, fun, rambling, “I just drank a Monster and it’s 2AM” type of convo. The ones where you go from talking about your favorite cartoon to existential dread to some obscure childhood memory and somehow it flows? That used to be the standard.

Now? Every chat feels like you’re applying for a job at their friendship. “Hey.” “Hi.” “What’s up?” “Nm.” “Cool.” dead silence. What am I supposed to do, pull a rabbit out of a hat and start performing emotional backflips to keep this thing alive?

And the worst part? You know they’re just sitting there scrolling through their 12 other dead-end convos having the same lifeless chat. It’s like everyone got so scared of being cringe that they just turned into cardboard.

Back in the day (yes, I’m saying that unironically), you could meet someone on a random anime forum or a cringey fanfic site and three hours later you were trauma bonding over the exact moment in your life everything started going downhill. You’d exchange weird inside jokes, maybe make a cursed edit of your usernames mashed together. Next thing you know, you’re best friends with someone named “xxCloudStrifeWife420xx” and you’ve never even seen their face.

Now if you type more than one sentence, you get ghosted. If you show interest in someone’s interests? You’re “too much.” If you don’t show interest? You’re “dry.” If you say something offbeat or weird? Boom. Left on read. Sorry, guess I wasn’t bland and mysterious enough for your curated mutuals-only aesthetic.

What happened to banter? What happened to typing like you’re on fire? Caps lock, typos, keysmashes, dumb made-up words that made no sense but you felt them. What happened to putting effort into conversations because they actually meant something? Now it's all vague one-word replies and a GIF if you're lucky.

It’s like everyone’s trying to text like an NPC now. Like they're afraid to be real people with bad grammar and strong opinions and stupid little obsessions. And I’m sorry, but if I have to carry another dry-ass convo where you just go “lol” after everything I say, I’m gonna start mailing people floppy disks filled with MS Paint rants about this exact topic.

I want to meet people who talk like they’re narrating a blog post from 2009. People who overshare too fast, send weird images with no context, and treat every convo like it could accidentally become a lifelong friendship. I don’t care if it’s messy. Messy is real. Messy is good.

Anyway. If you're weird and you still type like you're trying to exorcise a demon through the keyboard, I see you. I appreciate you. You are keeping the spirit of the internet alive.