Questions: Relationships

For a little over 2 years, I gamed online with two guys. In the early stages we used to game together more often but it wasn’t as often in the last yr. Usually it was at minimum 2-3 times a week & for hours, it was through a voice chat and eventually we added each other on social media. We met during Covid which explained how we had more free time but the fact we spoke through social media when we weren’t gaming + the rate we spoke at made me think there was a decent thing going. One guy was a bit older than me & was dl annoyed by the other guy that was closer to my age.

Long story short, I kind of got annoyed overtime with the cockiness of the older guy & decided to unfriend him, to be fair I removed the other guy too since I didn’t only want to be on speaking terms with one. The younger guy months later msged me & tried adding me back twice, the older guy msged me and asked why I got rid of him. I was blunt, he apologized & he told me about something really traumatic that happened to him. I was sympathetic & added him back maybe a month later.

After a few months of him not attempting to talk to me, I removed him because I got the impression he didn’t want anything to do with me. I’m pretty sure the two guys aren’t on each other’s friend lists either & they both follow me on IG still. Shortly after I removed the older guy again, he likes/comments on one of my IG posts. Literally a yr later, he looks at maybe 1-3 of my IG stories & this past weekend we were in a gaming session again. That was kinda rare to happen tbh since they’re so random but we didn’t interact AT ALL.

I mean these 2 guys were usually the ones to initiate interacting with me, the older guy very later on shared his # & even called me a “good friend”. Tbh I considered them online friends & would’ve been down to talk again if everyone was actually all in. I don’t think I’m one to get overattached but I’m surprised how they don’t seem to care at all.

There is no reason a man or woman couldn’t survive alone these days like they could in the generations before. Women weren’t allowed to have their own bank accounts and credit cards in their single name until the 1970’s, and there was still a huge stigma about marriage and relationships all the way through the 90’s. In previous generations, men HAD to marry in order to be considered people, in order to live a life and if they weren’t married they were forced to live off of their parents. This is where gender roles came in, as the man would usually be the provider, he would have the job (and most women couldn’t succeed at getting one that paid as well at that time anyway) and his wife would be the homemaker in the ideal nuclear family scenario. Now that we’re in a place where men and women can stand on fully legal and economically equal ground, do you think gender roles are necessary in society?