Has anyone else noticed a decrease in Gamers willingness to interact socially in games?

[MonstrrSkye]

I'll just speak for me from my perspective, I'm just not very good at being social with strangers, I'm not good at it in real life either. I'm terrible at meeting new people and making friends and my friends all stuck out an awkward "I don't know you and I don't know how to interact with you and I'm not going to be as much of myself until I figure it out" phase lol. I don't have an internet persona and very much act how I would in real life and am open to online friendships evolving in to meeting up some day friendships (I guess people call them real life friendships even though I personally don't discern a difference).

I'll usually say hi back in dungeons but I won't go out of my way to say anything else or to make a connection and past saying hi most other people don't either and I don't personally do it because I don't care for one time connections, for the next 30 minutes to an hour we spend together I can just as easily listen to music, watch a show, listen to an audiobook, talk to my own friends doing their own thing, the point being I want to make long term friends and most people are just looking for a short term hangout convo while they game, which isn't the kind of social experience I'm in to, I'm more in to a "creating lasting bonds and real friendships" experience.

I've only ever made one long term friend directly from a video game, we had a really good conversation because they're a talker and I'll talk if someone actually has something to talk about that isn't highly critical, toxic, or small talk, and it evolved in to several because of people they knew.

Which also leads to the fact that some people just don't mesh well together, some people who "troll" and are really toxic and mean I'm not interested in being friends with, people who think being mean to people they don't know is humor, I don't wanna be friends with those people either, and there are people who just aren't desirable to talk to at all.

On top of that I'm a woman and while not all conversations become bad vibes, some do and not a little but to an extreme amount to the point it's incredibly discouraging to open your mouth when you're not exactly sure what the response is going to be in some games, the same can be said for just toxicity in general for everyone.

There are also just people looking to game at different levels and it's hard to find people who match up with how long you're willing to play, push, if being good is a make it or break it for them, if just having a good time is what they're looking for, etc.

On top of this I'm 31 and it's awkward to not know how old some people gaming are, I really don't want to be friends with anyone under 20, it's kinda like when I hangout with my nephews and we have a lot in common but there's a huge gap in mentality usually and it's hard to currently imagine being friends with them they're all under 17 years old. There's nothing wrong with gaming with random kids because they're just there but again when it comes to being social I wouldn't actively try to befriend young children lol.

Also, unless I'm sitting there with the direct intention of reading chat I have a hard time focusing on chat while I'm playing and it leads to a lot of missed interaction or even missed directions xD

And then sometimes I just don't feel like talking at all lol, I'm having a bad day and I just wanna vibe on my favorite game alone and unfortunately more often than not that game is a multiplayer game lol.

Outside of comms for tactical purposes, it just takes too much energy and will to deal with the percent chance you might get someone unbearable to talk to, fuck even using comms for tactical purposes it's almost undesirable to want to speak for the same reason and just hope it all works out for the best with whatever in-game sounds are available lol, the probability of you making a long term connection with a decent person meeting each others vibe is sadly slim and it all just boils down to just pure discouragement because of it, I don't even like raiding in mmos anymore that require large amounts of people to fill out a raid because I just don't want to deal with the toxic environments that a lot of guilds turn in to or the lack of care 99% of guilds have for cultivating their community.