Well, it’s not exactly the suggestion from the PostADay2011 blog, but it’s the closest I’ve come so far!
I spend plenty of my time online, and connect with many people that way. I talk to “real life” friends via facebook, I talk to “internet friends” by posting on forums (fori?) and sometimes the two collide. Just today I had coffee, in real life, with a friend I met on the internet.
But it does seem that internet relationships are still judged as less real. Is internet dating less valid than picking someone up in a bar? Is flying halfway across the world to meet said person insanity, or merely a leap of faith? Should one be saving thousands of dollars so that one’s partner can meet a platonic internet friend, and take in DisneyLand in one trip?
For me, I tend to turn to my online friends when I need support. There’s something cathartic and, at the same time, self-involved about starting a new thread on a forum, all about whatever problem you have going on. But hopefully, if you are a good internet friend, you respond to others just as much as you seek support for yourself. So in that way, being an online friend is just like being friends in real life – with giving and taking, and some measure of equality. We’ve all had that one friend who takes and takes and takes, and needs and needs and needs, and somehow is just too busy when the tables are turned.
Theres a lot of discussion around whether the internet is actually facilitating or stunting connection between people. While I definitely agree that there are negatives (for instance, I’ll “catch up” with someone by looking at their holiday photos on FaceBook, rather than actually asking them about it) anyone who has met amazing interesting people online would be hard-pressed to deny the advantages.
