Found out one of the guys in one of my online groups died today. I don’t know if we ever shared a conversation outside of a group setting, but he was always kind and friendly. Always had a positive word, laughed easily, made others laugh. Regret not knowing him better. Miss him already.

Realizing I’ve been doing a poor job of connecting and maintaining connections since the pandemic started. Going to try to be better.

Life’s too short, guys.

Damn, that's a rough thing to find out. Online communities are a weird dynamic in that regard - you can feel strangely attached to someone you'll never meet and know very little about.

A minor shitposter in the Discord server for my BSc course died last month and I'm not sure how to approach the fact that all I ever knew about him was a nickname, 4 memes and that he was 19.

@lbfalvy
Well, if it is just a random shitposter, you shouldn't care. Humans are mortal. They die - all of them.
Spare your thoughts and grief for people you actually know.

@lbfalvy why should you even care much about that?

I can relate. I had started a dev group IRL and one of the first joiners was a lady who helped bring more people in and kept them engaged and socializing. Really friendly and extroverted, which was sorely needed. Then we stopped seeing her at our meetups. I figured she was busy with a new job she had started. Then after a few months went by, I was thinking of calling her when her mom called me to tell me this woman had died in her sleep unexpectedly. I didn’t know her all that well so it took me by surprise how much we all missed her. She wasn’t old, either, so it gave me a sense of our mortality as humans.

Same here, OP. I wish I was more extroverted and kept my middle school/high school/uni relationships kindled.

I keep promising myself I'll go and visit a few people from my past but still haven't done it.

But one day ...