Today was a good day, because I took the relatively rare opportunity to take a friendship with an “Internet Friend” to the next level — real friendship. Speaking face to face. Being able to see each other, and having to actually speak words instead of typing things.
My erstwhile Internet Friend Holly and I had been conversing online for some time after a chance encounter — as I recall, it was a Twitter follow and a question on Tumblr that has long since been lost among pictures of cats and pushed Formspring answers. Regardless of exactly how it happened, we got chatting, and we did that Internet Friends thing of talking a whole bunch, going quiet for days, weeks, months at a time, and then picking up where we left off without too much difficulty. A familiar story to many of you reading this, I’m sure.
As it happens, Holly used to live where I now live (not literally in the same house, that would be super-weird). As such, she decided to come on down to visit her friends who are still in the area now she’s elsewhere in the country. And we decided that it might be fun to meet each other and hang out.
Now, anyone who’s ever broached the subject of a real-life meetup with an Internet Friend, whatever the motives for doing so might be, will doubtless be aware of that feeling of unease and anxiety that comes as the date for your meeting approaches. (Or perhaps it’s just me. For the sake of this entry, however, I am going to assume you know what I’m talking about.) Will your friendship successfully carry over into the real world? Will you be able to make the same jokes you do on Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/text message/however you’ve been conversing previously? Will the other person take one look at you, think you’re some sort of hideous freak and run screaming out of the door?
Statistically, this is fairly unlikely to happen — in my experience, anyway. Out of all the Internet Friend meetups I have had over the years (and I’ve had a surprising amount, now that I come to think about it), only one encounter was a failure, and even then, it wasn’t completely disastrous — we just didn’t click in person for whatever reason. Past successful meetups saw me attending a showjumping event; getting married (though, granted, that didn’t end all that well, but that’s not the point under scrutiny here); flying to Toronto to play a ton of boardgames, see the sights and get sunstroke at the zoo; flying to Boston for super nerd-convention PAX East; having someone other than my brother and his family to visit when I’m in California (not that I don’t enjoy seeing my bro!); and, indeed, my current living situation and relationship with Andie can also be attributed to a successful Internet Friend meetup.
That one failure has haunted me a bit over the years, though. Despite all the other successful encounters, I still think back to that awkwardness I felt when I met Julia for the first time, and how awful I felt on the way home, thinking that all our long, heartfelt emails to one another had turned out to be essentially worthless. As those who know me well (and regular readers) will know, I am not the most confident person in the world, so to feel rejected like that — regardless of whether she had actually rejected me or it was simply my own social ineptitude that had caused the awkwardness — well, it hurt, quite a bit. As such, any time I’ve had the opportunity to meet up with someone I get on well with from the Internet, I’ve always been wary. All my insecurities and neuroses about my appearance, my personality and everything else all come out to play, and I find myself wondering if meeting is actually a good idea or not. In short, I worry the situation in the image above is what will happen.
Fact: it usually is a good idea to meet, and the situation in the image above is, mercifully, fairly rare. Look at it this way: you get on well online for a reason. For most people (those who aren’t making a specific effort to troll, anyway), their online persona is a pretty true representation of the person they are — often sans any insecurities they have in face to face meetings. And if you get on well when speaking in text, it’s pretty likely that you will get on in person, too.
You’re doubtless waiting on tenterhooks to know whether or not Holly and I hit it off, then. (Maybe not.)
We did. We managed to easily fill several hours of conversation on a variety of topics, and both left feeling good that we’d done that. We’re hopefully going to do it again before she has to depart back to far-off climes (relatively speaking). I’d call that a successful Internet Friend meetup, then, resulting in a real-life friendship. Hurrah!
So there you have it. You can make a Real Friend out of an Internet Friend. But you probably knew that already.
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Nope… it has never occurred to me to meet someone in real life who I even communicate with on an almost daily basis on the Internet, joking, having fascinating discussions and seeing each others graphics/photos etc. I never thought of that possibility… and would be VERY nervous…
Thanks for your description, and thanks for pioneering!
It is very nerve-wracking, particularly if you, like me, tend to suffer from social anxiety at the best of times. But as I say, the thing to keep remembering if you find yourself worrying is “we get on well together online for a reason; there must be something there.” If it’s someone you’ve been talking to online for a while, too, consider everything you might have shared with them — good and bad. Have they stuck with you even in difficult times? Then you’ll probably be able to take things on to that next level. 🙂
I sympathise entirely, though, and don’t force yourself into a meeting if it really does make you anxious and nervous. As I say, though, on every occasion but one I’m glad I took that scary step.
Thanks again for your bravery and insights!
My meeting-anxiety is double-sided… I tend to find certain conversation aspects quite stressing & distracting… mainly body language, if people relentlessly look into my eyes, change face expressions, demands my attention and in other ways require constant interaction, if they talk all the time or constantly jumps between unrelated topics… (many people do that)… Face to face conversations can be draining and tense. Even if both sides have interesting insights and common interests, and both are positive and enthusiastic about the meeting.
There are many potential communication barriers, stress factors and points of tension which online communication removes… or hides! Plus, the person I meet may not like my communication style, personality or whatever.
Then again, there are nice non-verbal aspects of conversations which online communication also eliminates/hides. I can imagine it is a significant reward to gain a real life friend from virtual communication … and super cool that it is possible!