REAL LIFE FRIEND 
I have many friends I know only from the Internet, but I have never met one in person…until now. Sure, years ago I had met dozens of pen-pals: people who I painstakingly hand wrote letters to and sent via the U.S Postal Service way back before there was an Internet. For some reason meeting an Internet friend is a different animal. A little over a year ago I befriended via twitter & fell instantly in-like. We both have personal blogs, so for the past 13 months we have read each other’s updates and dutifully left supportive and /or humorous comments. Our Internet relationship bled over to email where we exchanged more banter and delved deeper into each other’s life stories.
Becky was coming to Seattle for a week to be a part of an Improv. Festival, so this gave us an opportunity to meet in person. I picked her up at the airport and was not nervous in the slightest. I already knew her in near every sense except in the flesh. I had a gut feeling we would get along like a house on fire and I was right. When she hopped into the passenger seat I felt more like she was my sister and not someone I was meeting physically for the first time.
I took Becky to my home to meet the family, who also shared an instant fondness. I could tell my toddler was a fan, because he kept bringing her his precious rubber balls and presenting them as gifts; soon she was surrounded by every last one.
When she & I went out for drinks to have an unencumbered conversation, I realized the difference between an Internet friend and a real life pal: In the middle of a description of my childhood, I wanted to hyperlink to a complimentary post that would help with the back story or instantly upload a photo of my first pet. While she was talking, I wanted to refer back to related, previous posts to help fill in the blanks. More than once we each referenced previous blog entries and then expounded upon what we could not say to the Internet, but only in private in that darkly lit, near-empty downtown bar.
We compared our eerily similar birth order: we were both the youngest child by such a large margin, that we spent much of our formative years as the only child in the house, thus the duality of having the “youngest child syndrome” combined with the “only child complex”. Our siblings even had similar names. We also bonded over our tragic parental losses, love for diet orange soda and the Archie McPhee Novelty Store.
It was an absolute delight meeting Becky in 3-D Technicolor and getting to experience her brilliant humor, broad intellect & and balls-out enthusiasm for EVERYTHING. I am proud to call her my Real Life Friend.
I have many friends I know only from the Internet, but I have never met one in person…until now. Sure, years ago I had met dozens of pen-pals: people who I painstakingly hand wrote letters to and sent via the U.S Postal Service way back before there was an Internet. For some reason meeting an Internet friend is a different animal. A little over a year ago I befriended via twitter & fell instantly in-like. We both have personal blogs, so for the past 13 months we have read each other’s updates and dutifully left supportive and /or humorous comments. Our Internet relationship bled over to email where we exchanged more banter and delved deeper into each other’s life stories.
Becky was coming to Seattle for a week to be a part of an Improv. Festival, so this gave us an opportunity to meet in person. I picked her up at the airport and was not nervous in the slightest. I already knew her in near every sense except in the flesh. I had a gut feeling we would get along like a house on fire and I was right. When she hopped into the passenger seat I felt more like she was my sister and not someone I was meeting physically for the first time.
I took Becky to my home to meet the family, who also shared an instant fondness. I could tell my toddler was a fan, because he kept bringing her his precious rubber balls and presenting them as gifts; soon she was surrounded by every last one.
When she & I went out for drinks to have an unencumbered conversation, I realized the difference between an Internet friend and a real life pal: In the middle of a description of my childhood, I wanted to hyperlink to a complimentary post that would help with the back story or instantly upload a photo of my first pet. While she was talking, I wanted to refer back to related, previous posts to help fill in the blanks. More than once we each referenced previous blog entries and then expounded upon what we could not say to the Internet, but only in private in that darkly lit, near-empty downtown bar.
We compared our eerily similar birth order: we were both the youngest child by such a large margin, that we spent much of our formative years as the only child in the house, thus the duality of having the “youngest child syndrome” combined with the “only child complex”. Our siblings even had similar names. We also bonded over our tragic parental losses, love for diet orange soda and the Archie McPhee Novelty Store.
It was an absolute delight meeting Becky in 3-D Technicolor and getting to experience her brilliant humor, broad intellect & and balls-out enthusiasm for EVERYTHING. I am proud to call her my Real Life Friend.
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