Re: Online Friends Are Real Friends
I liked one of absurdpirate's recent posts called Online Friends Are Real Friends because it reminded me of a string of events I found interesting, but not something I'd normally note.
Recently, I've been delving more into Instagram (you'll remember from my post mentioning this, maybe) and as one does, you start posting photos of the places you somewhat frequent, and you note the photos of other folks, and where they're frequenting.
Someone who I only really knew online was apparently much closer to me than I thought, when I noticed their photoshoot along a local flood wall. In turn, he had noticed my photos on a local bridge. Or was it the other way around?
We'd practically been in the same neighborhood.
Fuck, we were literally in the same neighborhood.
Most folks might be so put-off by this, they'd unfollow, block, and ghost out of pure fright. In contrast, I'm the kind of person who gets warned that the photos I'm sharing in groupchats have identifying information, and I basically go-
"Yes, I'm aware. If it's someone hunting me down to try doing me harm; I'd like to see them try, first of all. But otherwise, it'd honestly be interesting to see who'd put in that kind of effort to begin with."
I might not be the most cautious knife in the shed, but I sure as hell am a knife.
I jokingly commented on this person's instagram about how I need to photobomb their next photoshoot.
I make real plans to meetup at one of the real bars within our neighborhood, that my mutual really agrees to.
Although we had never really had any full-length conversations before, it became apparent that this person who I'd quietly been mutuals with for I-didn't-really-know-how-long had been someone I knew from Tumblr circa 2013 Homestuck fandom. That's a deepcut.
Our recollections of internet going-ons of the time coalesced in a tipsy haze. All because I had the gumption to near immediately ask "Hey, where did we even start following eachother, by the way? It definitely wasn't just Instagram..."
And in a way, this hadn't been the first time when my internet life had come crashing into my real life - much like a run-in with ye' olde Kool-Aid Man.
My only experience with dating has really only been via the internet. By my third girlfriend, my shit was down pat. I met her in-person, and she's still my wife to this day. We had met and started talking on tumblr.
A few good friends of mine are ones I've only known online. Someone from Florida had met my now-wife at a con before my wife had ever dated me. We used to just be friends by proxy, but now I actively keep up with how she's doing, and we enjoy sharing Interview With The Vampire memes together.
I have a friend I think I made strictly on Discord coming to visit where I live this weekend. I plan on dragging them all over my city to check out our range of 2nd-hand videogame shops, and I'll see about us eating at all sorts of places. Maybe we'll fit in some mini-golfing too.
I somehow convinced someone I had known for only a few months to move all the way from Ohio, directly to my city - because obviously my city is waaaay cooler and much less depressing than being stuck in Ohio with people who apparently very regularly draw guns on eachother...Yikes. Yeah, anyway, we hang out often, and she's now playing with one of the local football teams?
The internet is an extension of your real life, you only need to have the audacity to break the 4th wall of the computer screen.