Ask Lemmy

Tell them to get a laptop and start going outside.

You can be online and out in the real world at the same time.

To be honest, there have already been some great answers on this about helping them on the endeavours they start. A recent podcast I listened to was about this very thing and they put it well.. ‘don’t spend so much energy trying to change people’. The problem seems to be that these people haven’t met YOUR expectations, and that is ok.

The only method I suspect works is inception.

Try and engage their hobbies and relate them to something public like an anime festival.

Need to get them to do something fun away from home.

Offer the support, offer the help, offer the talk or discussion, and leave it at that. If need be, occasionally/rarely remind.

Everything else would depend on closeness, personality, relationship, and urgency. Mostly, random online friends, there's an inherent distance, and not the mutual respect and experience together to excuse personal boundaries. Overstepping those would require previous agreements.

If you grab the tail of a dog and wave it to and fro, it is not likely that this will make the dog happy, even if it looks a little bit that way to an outside observer.

Likewise, trying to make a terminally online person* do what you think is normal (or even necessary) will not make them act or feel like you do, even if they're willing to go along with it for a while.

To use another animal metaphor, they'll come out of their shell when they're ready, but they may never be ready, and other people have to be OK with that.

* Of course, by "terminally online person" we should substitute whatever actual psychological diagnoses are responsible for the person acting the way they do, not what they do, assuming such diagnoses are even possible (or valid).

You have to understand your own limitations.

• They are 25 years old.
• They live with their mom.
• They never had a job.
• They only play games.
• and you don’t even live in the same town as them.

Someone, probably their mother is enabling this.

There is absolutely nothing you can do for either of these people. What you have to do is recognize that one day they will be at your door begging for support.

Get as far away from them as you can. You have no bargaining power here. Hey stop doing that thing that is so easy and come do this really shitty hard thing … because…

Listen to me man, get the fuck away from them.

Finally like others have said, you are judging them and rightfully so.

These dudes are losers. Find better friends.

"I'm not judging." Yeah, you are.

You're judging your friends and looking down on them. What if they look down on you for some other reason? Would you appreciate them scheming how to "get through to you" and posting threads on Lemmy that paint you as pathetic?

If you want to be a good friend, stop thinking you're better than others. Accept folks for who they are.

I tried everything for a couple of friends. similar stories. all I did was damage the friendship irrecoverably.

cut ties with them. dead weight drags you down.

besides, pretty presumptuous of you to think of them as being less than you and in need of you help.

Unless I can read them like a book or they personally ask me for help, I won't do anything. Some people just let the world around them think whatever it wants to think and they just keep their life, their goals and their progress to themselves. Now I'm not saying that this must be the case for your friends or that they definitely on't need your help. But they definitely don't need advice from online strangers like us as the only image of them we know is the one you painted.

hire them.

you have a job you can offer right?