I just spent two weeks in Los
Angeles, swapping homes with my friend Rachel. I enjoyed all the
70 degree weather and she enjoyed the novelty of parkas.
Angeles, swapping homes with my friend Rachel. I enjoyed all the
70 degree weather and she enjoyed the novelty of parkas.
One of the best parts of Living Your Life On The Internet is that you probably have friends (or readers! or clients!) in every corner of the world. I’ve had coffee with readers in Kuala Lumpur / Stockholm / NYC / Wellington, NZ and once a reader said hi in the customs line at Heathrow!When I decided to apartment swap with Rachel, I was suuuuuuper nervous about driving someone else’s car on the Freeways of L.A., but it never occurred to me to feel weird about going to a big city where I didn’t have a lot of ‘real life’ friends.
Because that’s what the internet is for.
I walked the beach and Richard Simmons-ed with Amber and two of her buddies. Anna and I checked out The Freak Show on Venice Beach and rode our bikes all over. Felicia and I hiked Griffith park and Marie mowed Mexican food with me.
At the risk of waxing nauseating, the internet actually reinforces my faith in humanity. It makes the world feel like a small, wonderful place filled with people I want to befriend. Every.single.person I’ve met through this blog has been lovely and smart and interesting. GROUP HUG, YOU GUYS.
Have you ever met someone in real life that you befriended on the internet? How’d it go?
I have met almost every one of my Portland friends from the internet! Twitter is the usual meeting place. It's awesome!
I stayed with a friend I met on a message board this past summer. She's so cool, I hate that she lives so far away. I could see us hanging out all the time if we lived in the same state.
Sounds like you had a really great time! I have met three peole that a met on the Internet and it went really well. Thing about it is though, is that I miss them in real-life now and wish they didn't live so far away!
I met up with two online friends on Friday night, and these two ladies would probably be described as my 'online bffs'. It went really well and even though it was my first time seeing them in the flesh I already felt like I knew them so it wasn't awkward.
The thing about meeting people offline or IRL is that you generally meet who you just happen to meet, who you're related to, who you went to school with etc. On the internet I've found that everyone I've met has more in common with me as you're not going to sit down with a hot chocolate to read my blog if you're not a similar kind of person. That's my theory why I've met some fanatic ladies through blogging that I might have been separated at birth from.
I've met a couple, and they went well. But by far, my favorite is YOU!
Saaaaame!:)
I met a friend in Australia who's blog I read- and she was as lovely in real life as she was online. My friend 'met' her husband via twitter- she was in Detroit, USA and he was in Oxford, England. AWESOME!
I met a friend through your Network of Nice! I had just moved to Austin, and I was definitely looking for friends. I saw a girl from Austin had posted on the Network of Nice a few months earlier, so we met up! She's super awesome, and we've hung out a few times since. So thank you! 🙂
Yay! So glad to hear it!
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. To this very day, I continue to make friends from the internet. My family was concerned, way back in those mid-to-late 1990s when I first started to eliminate the computer screen in my friendships, but as I have a current score of 98% positive encounters, they've all relaxed. Now, well over a decade later, they're amazed if my friends were made without the internet being involved!
It was SO great hanging with you, Sarah!! I've met and befriended lots of internet acquaintances over the years – most notably from couchsurfing.com – the people on that site have opened their homes and lives to me, with never a creep among them. And back during my craigslist dating days, I've met more than one guy that I can still today call a true friend.
Aw grouphug. You're actually the first person I've met on line and hung out with in real life and I just loved it. Now I'm obsessed with finding out where all my favorite bloggers live so we can hang out.
One of my oldest friends I met on the internet! Through…ready?….AIM. Yup, good ol' AOL instant messenger. We talked online for 2 or so years before we met in person, which when I asked he said (and I will never forget) "What if you're a creepy rapist dude?" LOL.
I bet you're pretty awesome in real life!
Ahahah! I'm 100% the same in real life as I am on the internet. But I laugh really loudly. And if I drop food on the floor I totally eat it.
I love this, and I totally agree with you. Hopefully I'll get to meet you one day!
I've been part of a tight-knit internet forum since 2001. We've followed each other everywhere on the internet, most recently to a secret group on FB. A lot of us have met each other, and we're constantly planning meetups, virtual baby showers, and other activities that blur the lines between internet and reality. I've had the privilege of attending the Vegas wedding of one of these lovely ladies, and when I moved back to NH and realized that another woman lived close by, we quickly upgraded our friendship from online to real life.
As I said, we're all really close, and we've all been through a lot together. I like to say that they're the best friends I've never met.
I've met a couple of my internet friends in real life, and it's always gone brilliantly. In fact, some of my most fantastic friendships began on the internet!
Sounds like you had a great time! I've never met any of my internet friends – but that's mainly because most of them live far far from Greece. If you're ever in Athens – we should def meet up!
Maria xx
http://www.cheekypinktulip.blogspot.com
I loved meeting you IRL, and the funny thing is, it doesn't seem weird to me anymore at all — I think this is a testament to how integrated the Internet had become in our lives. It's no longer "not real," and we have enough ways to communicate that we really can develop actual friendships over the airwaves!
* I also met my BFF of ten years in a LiveJournal group for incoming freshmen at our college. We got to be friends on the 'net (hee, remember when people said that?) before school started, but the first time we met was by accident — I saw a girl bending over to get a drink at a party, and recognized her tattoo!
Oh my gosh, I hope this doesn't sound super weird – but I think I just recognized you on TV! I was watching the show Freakshow which is a reality series about the freakshow in Venice Beach (http://www.amctv.com/shows/freakshow) and I was thinking "that girl in the audience has cute heart sunglasses, she looks familiar to me for some weird reason" and then I realized it might have been from your blog and sure enough google tells me this post happened where you saw a freakshow in Venice Beach! 😉
That's so awesome! Thanks so much for the head's up!