On Friends from the Internet
On Thursday - Sunday, a whole bunch of people I knew from the Internet came to Chicago. I've managed to see NoelCT twice now, but I've never seen phoenix_anew, jaklocke or skybreak_seeker in the flesh before until now.
(I've known them since 2011. Come to think about it, it took me about a year longer to see Randi and Don in the flesh)
I'm going to do a post, maybe two, on what actually happened. But for now... My mom has always insisted that friendships made over the Internet are no less valid than friendships made in real life. And I fully believe it. Randirogue helped me through one of the most difficult moments in my life months before we met in person. And yet...
We hung out. We talked. We played board games. And video games. And I couldn't help but think - wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice if we could get together and hang out whenever we wanted, to play board games, or watch movies, or what have you. Just every once in a while. Listening to Noel go off on interesting tangent on the complicated backstory of movies and books, going on and on without Twitter character limits to impose caps. Watching phoenix_anew get progressively drunker - yet, as skybreak_seeker observed, increasingly proficient in Clue. Just getting a chance to find out what skybreak_seeker has been up to.
It isn't that online experiences are inferior... They're just not the same thing. And, Amtrak/plane tickets suddenly get much cheaper, and everybody gets more free time, there isn't much anyone can do about that.
I don't want you to think it was a depressing experience. Far from it. I had lots of fun. And I am going to talk about it more next time. I promise it's not going to be depressing.
(I've known them since 2011. Come to think about it, it took me about a year longer to see Randi and Don in the flesh)
I'm going to do a post, maybe two, on what actually happened. But for now... My mom has always insisted that friendships made over the Internet are no less valid than friendships made in real life. And I fully believe it. Randirogue helped me through one of the most difficult moments in my life months before we met in person. And yet...
We hung out. We talked. We played board games. And video games. And I couldn't help but think - wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice if we could get together and hang out whenever we wanted, to play board games, or watch movies, or what have you. Just every once in a while. Listening to Noel go off on interesting tangent on the complicated backstory of movies and books, going on and on without Twitter character limits to impose caps. Watching phoenix_anew get progressively drunker - yet, as skybreak_seeker observed, increasingly proficient in Clue. Just getting a chance to find out what skybreak_seeker has been up to.
It isn't that online experiences are inferior... They're just not the same thing. And, Amtrak/plane tickets suddenly get much cheaper, and everybody gets more free time, there isn't much anyone can do about that.
I don't want you to think it was a depressing experience. Far from it. I had lots of fun. And I am going to talk about it more next time. I promise it's not going to be depressing.