I realized something today that's been a good long time coming: I really have no good reason to communicate with people online. That is, keeping this blog is one thing, like keeping a diary. But expecting that anyone online who knows me, or knows about me, would wonder what happened to me if I suddenly stopped blogging, would visit me in the hospital if I were ill (which I was, recently, last Friday through last Sunday, for diverticulitis), would sorrow if they learned I died, or otherwise entertain any feelings or carry out any acts they would for a real friend, is the height of folly.

People don't know those whom they know only online. An Internet relationship of any kind -- the ultimate oxymoron -- is as empty and sterile a thing as you can imagine, unless those involved know each other offline and at least visit with each other in person from time to time. After all, we are creatures of flesh and blood, related to all other Earthly life. Life's oldest and most dependable sensory modes, the chemical senses of taste and smell and the tactile sense of touch, evolved from pressure- and temperature-sensing cells, are part and parcel of every complex life-form Earth has ever known -- including us. Sight and hearing are wonderful, but they do not have the primordial immediacy and dependability that those far older senses do, and our first and best impressions of others are derived from reception of their pheromones in our Organ of Jacobson -- not smelled, but directly triggering brain response -- and, on a conscious level, their scent and even taste. Somebody isn't real to us unless we've occupied the same space as they have and literally gotten a whiff of them, however unconsciously. You can't do that on the Internet -- sorry.

Nobody needs me sending 500 bazillion emails to them 24/7. More, they don't need my troubles -- though they demand that I (and everyone else) accept theirs, try to comfort them, form a support network for them. My troubles are a little too real and long-standing for just about anyone I know. Knowing that, I really don't want to approach many people, because my medical and other problems tend to intrude rather disastrously.

I'm a failure in life. Everything I've tried has come to nothing, from marriage and children to a career of any kind. That's for real, not a complaint, just personal history. But failures are burdens, and people don't like being saddled with someone else's burdens. I have met very few people in my life who liked me for myself, with whom I could talk on any topic, to whom I could say anything about myself I wanted, and have them accept me -- and vice-versa. My own adoptive parents couldn't stand me -- that started when I was 9 days old, and it's never gotten any better. Without genuinely liking me for myself, how the hell could anyone stand me for any length of time?

I do have a few good friends, all out of state, people I've known for years. I exchange email with two or three of them, but have contact now with the others only through phone calls and letters. They say if you have one good friend you're rich, so I have to be the Bill Gates of friendship -- for real. They do like me for myself, and it is they I turn to for concern when I need it.

And that's what I realized: Don't turn to the Internet and the Web for a personal support network. You'll never find a real one -- just fraudulent groups or phishers whose only concern is to take you for everything you've got and then dump you. Don't turn to either of them to try to succeed in a career or anything else in life -- they'll only boost you if you've already succeeded.

So, my best bet is to stop communicating by email or any other online tool at all with anyone about anything. I'm betting that months will go by before anyone online will so much as wonder why I haven't emailed them or whatever -- and I know I'm right.

Which is all right. My health is deteriorating rapidly now, and I have to concentrate on keeping as much of it as possible, as long as possible. I don't have the energy or strength to do much more than that. And who needs distractions?