If you've been here for a long time - what has ever kept you away for weeks/months?

My local, monopolistic, cheap, horrible, dreadful server.

Bad weather that does mysterious things to the phone lines that often are in acres of deep, impenetrable woods.

(Where ya been, zen? I thought about you on Sunday when I saw the film, The Footnote, filmed in T.A.)

Found it boring.

Also, vacation and heavy work load.

Hi @gailcalled – taking a break I guess – it has been many years…

I took a break for a few months after I first came, but I came back.

I’ve been mad, hurt, busy working, other than that I’m here.

I got bored of most of the questions. Especially the “does he like me?”, non-question, GA/GQ, and redundant questions.

And most people ignore me, anyway.

I couldn’t deal with the stupid.

^^^ Remind yourself, that if you have the energy, your presence tips the balance pan.

Usually if I take a long break, it’s due to egotistical assholes.

The ever changing landscape that we like to call life.
That quote was brought to you from the great cowboy philosopher Mongo.

@gailcalled Thanks,:)

The only break I took was a vacation where I did not take a computer with me. I may have periods where I don’t post a lot. I lurk, but I’m still here.

@mrentropy There’s something special about everyone, hope to get to know you better!

In past years during times of sickness for some reason I felt repelled by my computer. I know that’s weird. But I would disappear off the internet for that reason.

School keeps me very busy.

This past summer, for a much happier reason. A long vacation.

Mescaline.

Ron Jeremy & a shit ton of KY.

I’ve never taken a full break, but I have drastically cut down on the number of questions I respond to. They get very repetitive.

Oops, kindly disregard my previous response, wrong question…how embarrassing.

I’ve taken two lengthy (six weeks, two months) breaks. Both times it was because something really got under my skin and I just had to walk away. I don’t want to come here and be angry. That isn’t my idea of a pleasant pastime.

Otherwise I think I’ve received my daily point for logging in just about every day.

Welcome back, @zenzen. I’ve missed you.

Simple distraction. Pressing matters. Getting more involved with writing my blog.
What kept you away @zenzen?

PCs dying, reformats, work, seriously…work, boredom with the site, 4th kid being born, 3rd kid turning out to be extremely demanding, work, Battlefield 3, work.

Mostly going dormant from stress this past number of months. Getting my groove on again, a little bit.

Aggravation.

All of the above….mostly!

I think the two longest times I’ve ever been away were each about a week long. Once because we had no electricity (bad storm), and once because I was too sick to move.

Especially exhausting work days, or having company at our house. Other than that, I like to try to check in every day.

Work or travel, or sometimes just a lack of ideas worth sharing.

At the moment I am away because of work, I wont be around much for the next month or so, but come October I will no doubt be refreshing the social section page every 15 minutes or so.

I would love to spend some time here, and just relax to the sound of my brain actually working and doing things, rather than just going through the motions at work. Not long to go now.

I needed time to grow.

The lapses in my activity here were unplanned and simply circumstantial in that I was too busy to be online much. I have no idea how many there were or how long they lasted. I am puzzled by people who announce on social sites that they are taking ‘breaks’ or leaving, or when they return. It all just seems a ploy for attention.

^^ Oh that’s it! I’m leaving again!

I get pretty caught up in school, so that’s the major reason for most of my inactivity on the site. It’s hard to keep up when you’ve got books to read and papers to write and television shows to keep up with! The other reason is that I haven’t made a ton of personal connections or friends on the site, so I don’t have much compelling me to be active other than the interesting questions.

I took a multiweek break after getting my ass handed to me a few weeks after I signed on. Other than that, just vacations, work schedules and focusing my OCD on another subject for a while.

I keep coming back though because overall, you guys make my laugh and think and feed me internet content that I would not even think of looking for on my own.

I’ve taken a handful of breaks, ranging usually from two to six weeks.
(Just back tonight after taking a few weeks off)

My reasons have been varied: burn out; depression; avoiding certain people, or letting them avoid me, so to speak.

I think I even canceled my account once, but obviously Auggie reversed it for me when I came to my senses.

I had a forced break tonight when our power went out, but it was only about an hour.

Anger. Doing non-computer things. Video Games. Working. I got banned from the chat room and the chat rats slowly moved somewhere else on the internet, leaving my favorite part of this website absent. I find it almost impossible to become attached to Fluther now that everything I loved about it is gone.

Now another website has my heart, and the friendships I formed here have been continued on Facebook/Twitter… so I’m pretty comfortable only checking in every so often.

I don’t know how people don’t take lots of breaks truthfully. I find the questions get really repetitive after a while. Most of the people (read: almost every single one) I met or already knew when I migrated here long ago from another site have long, long ago stopped coming. So while fluther still has its moments for me, it’s been years since I felt like a real part of a community.

When the founders moved to twitter, it killed my last bit of enthusiasm. I feel like fluther has been quite stagnant since then. I kind of just accept these things as the way of the internet. I still come because I have fun from time to time. But I can also just plain forget about fluther for a while.

Oh, the other thing is going through a non-NSFW conversation and suddenly a bunch of profanity or other NSFW starts showing up in the comments. I like to check in once or twice at work and when that happens I have to start worrying about people showing up behind me and reading over my shoulder.

Big part would be some of the people. Like a boil on my side. ;-)

I usually find time to check in most, if not every day. In the 4.5 years since I joined Fluther I have only been away when I have been on holiday. I never feel the need to take a break from here.

The longest I’ve been away for was holidays, when I didn’t take my computer with me. Never more than a week.

@rangerr . . . i thought it was because you can’t play trivia for shit

I just forgot about it.

No internet.
Tired of spending too much time on the internet.
Tired of dealing with assholes and rude behavior.
Tired of petty bs.

I find better things to do with my time, for the most part. Once or twice I let myself get upset over ‘stupid’, but then I remind myself, I have a life.

Thanks @Jeruba – you’e one of the reasons I stay.

@zenzen you forgot the “sigh”. :)

@jeruba what made you so angry?

@anartist, I stayed away long enough to forget the particulars, and that was the point. It would be counterproductive for me to go back and dig them up now. But I can say that it was behavior that falls into the same general category that regularly bothers others, sometimes more, sometimes less: rude, ignorant attacks, irrational arguments and justifications, name-calling and sniping. In other words, the ugly side of online interaction. We all know what it’s like when it breaks out here, even though we do have one of the cleanest and sanest sites around (thanks to our mods and a lot of self-policing).

From this distance I couldn’t tell you who was on either the giving or the receiving end, but I knew I was going to lose it if I stayed within range. Sometimes it’s enough just to leave a thread and avoid certain subjects and users, but on those occasions I thought it best to get completely away.

@Blondesjon You know, I only remember showing up for trivia once. I assume the other times I was too intoxicated to even participate.

^ ^ * sigh *

I remember my big fun fight and my big nasty fight vividly. both of them.
as a rule I slip-slide away.

I remember food fights.

Long time since the last nekkid pancake fest! ! !

Since @zenzen has yet another incarnation, I feel it’s only fair to initiate this one.

<gives zen a wedgie and stuffs him in the frizzer>

@WillWorkForChocolate You are so tied up and flogged right now. Phasers on stun.