we're all cringe here

[socksuke_uchiha]

Rundown: rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

you're right that it's not exactly the same with rp but i think the lines are a little blurrier than that, nonny. parasocial behavior isn't necessarily contingent on 0 social interaction - for example, someone who gets overly attached to a small time streamer who chats/responds with their viewers on stream. or starts behaving inappropriately with a voice actor who they've chatted with and been a fan of for a long time. one of my friends is a "BNF" (emphasis on the quotation marks) artist in a specific fandom for a specific ship. while 99.9% of the time they have nice fans, they also get weirdos who start sliding into their dms behaving in an overly familiar way because they chatted about the ship a couple of times.

what feels 'parasocial' about this kind of thing imo is when the social bonding happens over a shallow connection and happens over usually a relatively short amount of time. if someone considers me a friend after 6 months of rping and regularly chatting so that we have a sense of each other's personalities outside of a shared fandom, that's one thing, but... if all we have in common is a fondness for Kingdom Hearts and a ten comment threads, who did you (general you) make friends with really, other than an idealized image of the person on the other side? i have had the latter happen before and it was honestly really disconcerting

[(Anonymous)]

Streamers who respond to their viewers on streams or VAs who chat with a fan at a con or answer asks on social media are interacting in a professional capacity, not a social one. I'll give you BNFdom being blurry, but that's still not the same thing as someone you're deliberately interacting with one-on-one as part of a social hobby.

There is nothing remotely parasocial about your relationship with someone you chat or thread with. At all. Assuming they aren't just one of the many, many people who uses "friend" as shorthand for "friendly acquaintance", it's possible for them to be overinvested, but it's still an actual social relationship. It's up to you to make your boundaries clear, and disengage if they push them.

[(Anonymous)]

parasocial or social, establishing boundaries and enforcing them is the same in either case. OP was asking for tips on what they can change about their behavior to dissuade it, and my answer comes from having had similar interactions in dwrp and also as someone who's had people build up parasocial (in the way you define it) relationships to me based on my socmed presence.

also i doubt they're having such a strong reaction just from having someone use the dreaded F(riend) word, i know i didn't. it's having someone assume you're much much closer than you actually are and treating you as a close confidante when they hardly know you and vice versa. sure, you can cut them off and tell them to stop, but it feels pretty bad and awkward for everyone involved. better to head it off early and just take steps to not give people the impression that you're both vibing on the same shared friendship wavelength.

[(Anonymous)]

"A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship formed when one party extends energy, interest, and time and the other person doesn't know they exist, according to the National Register of Health Services Psychologists."