Walking Away vs. Digging In.

Why the Internet Breeds Stubborn Standoffs.
In the real world, life has a natural filter: distance. If you don’t like someone at work, you change departments. If a neighbour irritates you, you nod politely, close your door, and spend your free time elsewhere. If a stranger annoys you in the street, you keep walking and never think of them again. The healthy, instinctive reaction to an unpleasant presence is simple — move away. Gain distance. Maintain that distance.
But online, it’s different. Distance doesn’t exist in the same way. The internet shrinks the world into one infinite room, where every conversation is visible, and every disagreement can be replayed, screenshotted, and reignited indefinitely. In this room, people don’t just walk away. They stay. They plant their feet. They glare across the digital floor and mutter, “I’m not moving. You move.”
The result? A strange inversion of real-world social dynamics. In person, avoidance is easy and almost invisible. Online, avoidance feels like surrender. Many internet users see the act of “walking away” as admitting defeat, losing the argument, or letting “the other side” win. Pride overrides peace. Instead of quietly disengaging, people actively hold their ground. They keep clicking into spaces they claim to despise, commenting under posts they allegedly wish didn’t exist, and interacting with people they say they want nothing to do with.
This is where it gets more absurd. In the offline world, if you can’t handle someone’s presence, you rely on your own boundaries — you remove yourself. Online, some people instead recruit backup. They call in moderators, administrators, friends, and followers to “deal with” the person they don’t like. They gather allies, like forming a village mob with digital pitchforks, all in the name of pushing the “offending” person away while they themselves remain rooted firmly to the spot.
It becomes less about protecting one’s peace, and more about controlling the environment. In the real world, the solution is personal — I’ll walk away. On the internet, the solution is often authoritarian — You will be made to leave. And that’s why conflicts online can last for months or even years. No one backs down, no one takes the easy path of disengagement, and every minor slight becomes a battle for territory, recognition, and dominance.
In truth, the healthiest option online is the same as in the real world: if you don’t like someone, leave their space. Unfollow, block, mute — and keep moving. But that requires humility. It requires accepting that the other person might still be out there, existing without your approval. For some, that’s too bitter a pill to swallow. And so, instead of simply walking away, they stay in the same room, stamping their feet, crying like toddlers, demanding that the other be the one to go.
The internet didn’t invent human stubbornness — it just gave it unlimited bandwidth.