imaginary friends

.
so i don't know how long y'all have been on the internet but i am willing to believe that if i haven't been around the longest then i'm at least in the running. i'm pretty sure i first got online in some form or another around ninety-three and have been relatively constant since then.

i remember that moment you know, the first time i tried real time chat. i couldn't fucking believe it, in fact i thought it might just be the coolest thing ever. i mean really can you imagine? REAL TIME talking with people all over the world!

sure you had to wait for the letters to form on the screen and
sure there weren't any pictures and
sure there were only forty irc channels in the world and
sure you had to hide your identity as the only online female for a hundred miles and
sure the web didn't exist (but mosaic did) and
sure you could only do one thing at once and
sure freenets were limited but they were free and
sure there weren't any good cat pictures and
sure bbses were way more fun (tradewars!) and
so on...

but still

it was transformatory. real time talking with anyone in the world at any time of the day or night.

and i've never for a second stopped thinking that that was cool. it's still my favourite thing about the net and will probably remain so until i can click a button and watch any episode of any show for a buck or so.

consequently i've met a lot of people online.

in fact of the last four men i've dated seriously i met three of them in irc channels. the fourth picked me up on a ski hill and got me to marry him, but that's a whole 'nother story. oh and i met another man while ski patrolling.

anyway, i've made a lot of friends on the internet, some i've met and some i haven't and i defy anyone to tell me that the ones i've met are somehow more meaningful or better (although it was nice to hug them.) i've had at least a few online friends for a decade now.

a decade.

anything that you can do in real life can be done on the internet and almost always the pace is accelerated and the emotions are more raw. there is a safety to sitting in a chair in your own home and looking at your own monitor. you know that the people you are speaking with are real and all but somehow because of that distance (even if they're just down the street) you will somehow let your guard down further.

this is probably why the internet is the great white hope for the quirkyalones of this world who wish to be couple-y.

aside:
are you a quirkyalone?
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my score: How quirkyalone are you?
Your score was 104. Very quirkyalone:
Relatives may give you quizzical looks, and so may friends, but you know in your heart of hearts that you are following your inner voice. Though you may not be romancing a single person, you are romancing the world. Celebrate your freedom on National Quirkyalone Day, February 14th!}

[i also say yes to eight or nine of the ten 'additional signs' but i am ridiculously good at tests... :)]
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aside two: thanks for the book princess valium, i've wanted it since before i knew she was writing it!
[end asides]

okay the point is that i've met as many of the people in my life online as off and that most of my friends are people who are comfortable communicating on the internet. i'm not good with phones and i'm pretty bad with answering voice mail (well i kind of suck at email too these days) but if you're online we will stay in touch if we wish to.

and still and all? it doesn't make the meeting online friends thing any easier.

some thirteen years later i'm still nervous when i meet people that are my online friends. the nerves fade a lot more quickly now and it tends to be easier to start talking out loud but it's weird.

i've seen geeks go to meetings and hook themselves into irc or im so they could chat with EACH OTHER while sitting at the SAME TABLE!

and think i was weird for suggesting they try speaking with each other using their voices.

okay i'm weird but what does that have to do with the point at hand?

i laugh a little when i think about this online dating phenomena. i had my first 'online date' in like nineteen ninety four but we didn't have lavalife or okcupid we had chat and mutual friends. it was just like meetings someone at a party only you had to meet them again to see what they looked like.

you didn't have pictures to go on. no video, no webcams.

there wasn't a handy web page or blog somewhere where they talked about themselves (although i did my first one of those in ninety five or so. fuck i'm old.) and there was no google to ferret out their cat's name or their real age.

you had to just believe them. and learn about them the 'old fashioned' way.

but on the internet.

i'll never forget meeting Z. and i met him in an irc channel and admired his entrance. there was flourish.

or D... damm he was so cute with the not realising i said yes when he asked me out. [D: so when are we going to go out? sass: i don't know you haven't asked me yet. - steps on chairlift - he said it took him three days to realise that i hadn't said no - lol]

one online and one on snow but both memorable and real.

i've lost count of the number of times a friend has picked up the pieces or shared their sorrow or asked for advice or told me about their day or asked after my cats...

i've laughed and cried and had my heart lifted and broken and mended again. i've felt spark and been moved and had my life changed forever.

i don't understand why people talk about the internet as though the things that happen there aren't real.

just how is it exactly that they aren't real?