in defense of people who have internet friends (I will die on this hill)

An amazing drawing by my talented internet fren Iriria. Check out @coppereddrawings on Instagram. 

Alright, I'll admit I'm mad. I always feel like it's the most privileged, normie, suburbanite, neurotypical ass people who hate on people who have internet friends. We get it, you have generic interests and low emotional needs so you can easily befriend random people and you don't need to spend one-on-one time with people to feel close with them. You don't need to ever have conversations about something deep or interesting because you're fine with shallow ass relationships. Whatever. Just don't expect the rest of us to be satisfied with that. 

So right now, I don't really have internet friends who I talk to that much. They're nice when I do talk to them, but they're not really that significant to my life any more. Shoutout to Anthony and Iriria if ur reading this tho lmao u guys are great. Anthony is this cool Mexican guy who's a history teacher and Iriria is my Costa Rican friend who makes very pretty art!! Right now, I just have tons of irl friends who I actually feel close to so I don't really need to talk to Anthony and Iriria every day. But I also wouldn't have been able to survive my tumultuous teen years without people like them. I'm not as reliant on internet friends, but I'm grateful af that I had them in my life when I needed them.

Internet friends were very significant for me throughout my teenage years and beyond that too. I'd say they were actually pretty significant to me until I started doing my masters, which was when I was 22. So what happened when I was 22? I had a friendship breakup the year before with one of my closest internet friends at the time and it was devastating. I still respect him and I'm grateful for the impact he had on my life even though he's not in my life any more. 

After this happened, I decided to look more for irl friends because I thought this would help. But if you think about it, this is actually a stupid assumption. The friendship breakup didn't happen just because we were internet friends. A similarly devastating scenario could easily repeat irl (and DID actually repeat irl with someone I was close to during my masters). I also forgot how boring people in real life are. I'm not trying to roast anyone, because I realize boringness is subjective. You may be very interesting to someone else even if you're boring to me. But a lot of people are just very boring to me, and forcing myself to be friends with them is not good for either of us. 

The type of things I could talk about with my internet friends is just stuff that normies woudn't be able to keep up with because they don't have the same interests as me. For example, Iriria made a Discord server with me and some other internet friends and we watched Killers of the Flower Moon together while chatting live on Discord. Iriria and most of her friends are interested in Indigenous cultures. So the conversation they had about the movie was actually interesting. A normie would either not be interested or just mildly interested. 

I'm autistic, so I just like things more than you and I also get bored by things more. You can like a lot of things a little bit. I can like a few things a lot. That's just how my brain works. It's called monotropism. 

Anyway, during my masters, I didn't get along very well with my cohort but I forged a strong 'ride or die' bond with two PhD students who I met at the time. Shoutout to Andy and Sylvanna you guys are my homies. Something really crazy happened with Andy and Sylvanna. It was the first time I met people offline who I found so relatable.

Now, I do have two very close friends irl who were with me throughout my tumultuous teen years. Their names are Vicky (or V*c, as I call her) and Joan. They're from the same suburb as me. I love them, but I don't think our bond is really based on similar interests. We do have some interests in common but that's not really the basis of our friendship. The love I feel for Vicky and Joan feels kind of sibling-like. They're like chosen family. And family is held together by more than just interests. I feel like there's this sort of sense of duty, protective feeling, etc. that I have for them. 

But also, even though Vic and Joan are amazing, they can't satisfy all my needs. I needed internet friends to satisfy my needs of being able to talk about my niche interests. I could talk about the Aztecs with Anthony or Iriria but not with them, because they wouldn't know as much as my internet friends would. 

After my masters, I spent a year studying the Ojibwe language. Then, I started my PhD. I have NEVER had such as EASY time making friends as I have had during my PhD. It's ridiculous. Doing a PhD for me has been like the coolest, smartest, most relatable people I have ever met begging me to hang out with them and talk to them every day. I'm not even exaggerating. And as someone who was seen as a loser in high school who only had internet friends, this is just wild to me. It's because PhDs select for people who are crazy passionate and want to yap about their interests. The type of connections you make during a PhD are so electrifying it's crazy. I don't know how to describe it to normies who only have surface-level connections. I honestly don't think you guys have experienced anything close to it even in romantic relationships. 

People who thinks it's uncool or unhealthy to have internet friends are discriminating against people with autism, ADHD, and even against LGBT people without knowing it. Where do you think LGBT people who aren't out of the closet meet other gay friends? They need the internet to form a community. There is no guarantee that someone irl will treat you better, share your values, respect your interests more than someone you meet online. 

Also, having internet friends who are good and loyal is like 1901203 times better than being friendless and like 912834021229 times better than having irl friends who are mediocre, unfulfilling, don't really care about you and understand you, etc. 

So in conclusion, what do you do if you're weird and struggle with making friends? Get internet friends, or go to grad school. Your quality of life will improve immensely. Trust me. Most normies will never experience 1/100th of the quality of the bond I had with an 'AuDHD' political boy on Twitter or the autistic PhD students I talk to. 

Good luck!!!

The Improover to Doomer Crashout (Send help plz)

 This is how I look rn:

Yer girl is going through it rn. I actually need a doctor. And a therapist. And a physiotherapist. R.I.P. me. Basically, I've been dealing with horrible anxiety and it's been affecting my mental/physical health a lot. Today I realized the cause is something quite unfortunate: I've become too invested in self-improvement, what you can call "Improover culture," which means it's actually too hard for me to just turn my brain off and enjoy things without trying to improve in them. I also haven't really improoved in anything except marginally I guess. I don't know. It's just not working. In case you don't know what Improover culture is, this meme does a good job of romanticizing it:

Now as you may know, I like drawing and writing. But drawing is actually a source of immense stress for me now. I don't draw to relax, I draw to improve my drawing technique now. 

It's very hard for me to turn off my brain. I tried to mindlessly do a colouring book, but it didn't work for relaxing me. I always found meditation really hard. There were a bunch of times I tried to get into it with meditation classes or videos but I only kept it up for like a week or two at a time and then gave up. I find it hard to enjoy popular media because it feels low quality.

I used to make fun of my parents because they both watch too many TV shows, but my dad said they watch them completely without guilt. They don't view these shows as a time waster at all, even though I can't help but see them that way. But that means they're also way happier than me. They don't have these types of crashouts. 

There are some YouTubers I will admit I actually do like watching even though I feel cringe to admitting to this. I like watching JREG, Vaush, Contrapoints and on the completely opposite end of the political spectrum: Classically Abby sometimes (Ben Shapiro's sister). Obviously, watching YouTube is a low IQ and time wasting hobby. And I always feel extremely guilty if I watch these things because it feels so dumb, like how my parents watch dumb Pakistani TV shows with cousin marriage plots. 

But my dad gave me the advice to actually do some activities purely for fun, no matter how stupid they are. He said it would be better for my mental health in the long run. And maybe I would actually improve a bit more if I didn't have anxious breakdowns all the time. 

Idk how to feel about this. I've been doing 'monthly goals' for some time and failing to meet them. I also made a huge list of 2026 goals and didn't achieve most of them so far. But is anything on that list worth the amount of stress I feel rn? I don't know about that.

I have been forcing myself to make 'technique drawings.' These are drawings that I don't like making. They're not my preferred style. But they're necessary for improoving. I was supposed to make 10 of these but I only made 5 so far. I leave you with my sad 'technique drawings' below:

Okay actually I'll try to end on a slightly hopepilled note? idk

So my dad studied engineering in university. But he was also an actor (just as a hobby). He used to perform in plays. He actually used to be a very cool person before he became a suburbanite. But anyway, he told me he'd have minor crashouts sometimes because he would meet professional actors and thought he wasn't as good as them. But then he remembered he was an engineering student (and a very good one), while these people did acting 24/7. It was their actual career. One can argue it's more impressive to be a good engineer and a mediocre actor than just a good actor, idk. I am not sure if this is hopepilled enough, because some Sigma Self-Improover reading this could be like "SKILL ISSUE!!!!!!! I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN A HOLLYWOOD ACTOR AND A WALL STREET BANKER AND A SILICON VALLEY TECH BRO AND I SPEAK 83 LANGUAGES AND I MAKE OIL PAINTINGS THAT SELL FOR $11988398110 EACH AND I HAVE READ EVERY DOSTOEVSKY NOVEL AND I CAN DO 69 PUSHUPS IN A ROW IN PERFECT FORM. YOU LAZY KIDS THESE DAYS JUST AREN'T LOCKING IN HARD ENOUGH."

Anyway, I'll let y'all ponder about this one. I haven't really figured out the solution to this problem yet, because I don't like the idea of abandoning self-improovment. idk what to do honestly. Do I just have skill issues?

This book will literally save your life if you're an aspiring polymath

Today I went to the library. 

I finished reading one of Erasmus's essays called Lingua. 

I reviewed 469 vocabulary flashcards in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language). 

I worked on planning a lesson for the kid I'm tutoring. 

I found a book on statistics in the library. I learned some stats concepts from this book and practiced them.

I worked on some art as well (a realistic drawing of a cat). 

And I finished reading a self-help book for people who have many interests. It's called Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. This book is what I have come to talk to you about today.