People

In her post Talking to Strangers, Robin recounts her meeting fellow bloggers in person for the first time.

It's not so unusual as it may sound, as virtual communities are often strong ones, and in-person gatherings and "real-life" relationships are natural corollaries. Of course, I speak as one who met her husband online, and who has many close friendships with roots in overlapping online communities from twenty years ago. Yes, people were online back then, though only geeks and spies knew about ARPANET and BITNET, those precursors of the Internet. Some of us dialed our phones and put the handset (a concept now almost as obsolete as "dial") in the acoustic coupler and called up a local bulletin board at 300 baud. Real geeks had 1200 baud modems and talked to friends all over the world on Fidonet.

You might think that friendships born online would be least likely to change over time and distance. Not so; we began to meet in person as well as online. We had parties and happy hours and group outings. After a time, the friendships expanded to include significant others, spouses, and children. We attended each other's weddings, christenings, and bar mitzvahs. The friendships matured and deepened, and while parties and group events continued, we also became close friends with individuals and like all friends, went out to dinner and to movies and to reciprocal charitable events. We visited our friends in the hospital and cried at their funerals and tried to preserve real memories in a virtual world. These are people who know me as I am, like me for who I am, and make me laugh and think and try new things.

Just like any good friends, anywhere.

And so, when I moved to Michigan, I left many friends behind. We still exchange emails. One of our BBS systems migrated to YAHOO groups, and maintains conversations that haven't matured much in the intervening years. But we can no longer drop by for a spur of the moment dinner, we're missing this year's parties, and the kids are older and taller and prettier and smarter, and we're not there to see it.

So, if anyone tells you virtual communities aren't as good as "real" ones and virtual friends aren't 'real" friends - tell them they're wrong. Virtual holes in your life are just as big.