Online Friendships
Well. I was amazed at how many times I turned to the internet for some information: to check my email, to find a recipe, to look up a phone number, or to simply Google something for clarification. And each time, I was brutally rebuffed by that No Connection screen. I had to actually open up the White Pages book to get that phone number!
What I missed most of all, however, was being able to check in with people with whom friendships have been cultivated online. I couldn’t get updates on people that I’d never met in real life! My venture into having an online life began innocently enough when I was planning my wedding in 2001. Searches for advice on planning the ceremony and reception landed me on the message boards of the Wedding Channel. The community of women who were going through wedding planning, or had just emerged from wedding planning hell, was extremely helpful to me with ideas and tips on what not to do.
I was a classic lurker on these message boards. I didn’t say much and simply gathered information. It wasn’t until I became pregnant with BabyBito that I came out of lurking mode. I found a group of women who were also due the same month, and we bonded through a due date thread. This group of friends became even more precious to me when The Husband and I moved to the other side of the world in my seventh month of pregnancy. Being able to stay in touch with my gals was a source of sanity in my otherwise disrupted life.
Soon after the birth of our babies, most of us migrated over to an online journaling site that allowed more privacy controls. My circle of women expanded as I was introduced to friends of friends. I never meant for my life to become so entwined with these online friends…but now, real relationships and emotions exist. I’ve had the privilege of meeting quite a few of them face-to-face—friends from all over the country, and from other countries, too. Gals in the DC area that I met online are people that I know and love, and I wish we could get together more frequently.
What is cool is that my online life has given me the opportunity to meet people from many walks of life—different cultures, different mindsets, different beliefs, different attitudes that I may not have otherwise been exposed to. These are people whom I consider to be friends—no longer online friends, but friends. I’m glad for each of them, and for the ways my life has been enriched by their choice to have an online life, too.
Original DC Metro Moms post.
Michelle blogs at Wife and Mommy.
