Do you have any friends who are online only?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a handful of very close friends who started out as online only but we have all now met in person.

Ditto this.

[Anonymous]

In '99 I stumbled across an entertainment magazine's forums. That place has long since been shut down (and I still maintain that it wasn't our fault. What did they expect to happen when you let a bunch of young barely social nerds in an unmoderated forum?) After they shut us down we migrated to a new board and have managed to run off almost all of it's original posters AND it's owner. Those guys are my boys. I know more about their lives (and vice versa) than I do my neighbors, who behave as if I've sprouted another head when I smile and wish them a good morning.

[Anonymous]

Of course not. How can someone be a friend if you have met them do you even know if they are who they say they are?

[Anonymous]

PP - in addition to that group of friends, there is a group of IRL friends from a previous city that now communicates online, so I can still participate. I knew almost all of these women first in real life. A few have joined over the years that I haven't yet met.

I like to think that this is something like the passionate letter-writing friendships of American pioneer women. It's not that easy to find completely simpatico people in real life, although I do - this gives me a larger circle on which to draw. I also find that most people are braver online. It's the flip side of those who are meaner and more judgmental because of the anonymity; some people really flower. And those people, I'm so delighted to call my friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course not. How can someone be a friend if you have met them do you even know if they are who they say they are?

Really? You don't think it's possible to know who someone is after years of soul-baring? Why do you think you know the people you've met face to face? People conceal who they are in real life, too.

Why do people on DCUM have such strong opinions with so little experience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A man who has chatted with women on line a few times when I have had problems at home. But the problem is I can get emotionally attached easily so I cut it off pretty quickly. Never met them URL.

As someone whose husband left her for a woman he met online, I can attest to how easily men and women can move things online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course not. How can someone be a friend if you have met them do you even know if they are who they say they are?

Really? You don't think it's possible to know who someone is after years of soul-baring? Why do you think you know the people you've met face to face? People conceal who they are in real life, too.

Why do people on DCUM have such strong opinions with so little experience?

I 100% agree with PP. In the 90's I did web design, both for local companies and a few clients scattered across the US and Canada. To drum up business I had a personal website with an office webcam + a forum. Did I (a 20-something female) attract a few loose screws? Yes, but far less than I've encountered "in real life" and the ratio of good people to bad was easily 100:1. Now that I'm an older, married, SAHM I no longer have the website or the business....but I still keep in touch with at least 50-60 of the people I met through it via FB and have gotten to meet at least half of them in the flesh. I count some of them among my very best friends

[Anonymous]

I also have several friends I "met" through an online parenting message board. I have met several of them IRL, but others are only "friends" online, now through Facebook. Usually there is a common interest that made us more friendly - like a love of certain shows or something.

Sure, there is the possibility that people aren't who they say they are. But I just enjoy chatting with people, period. Facebook is like a giant meeting of my friends, where we carry on constant conversation.

[Anonymous]

No. And I guess I'm weird because I don't accept "friend" requests on FB from friends of friends who I don't know personally. I don't covet or accumulate "friends" that way. I have 30 friends on FB, and they're all real life friends and family. I don't need 1700 friends; I'm an adult and this is not a popularity contest.

[Anonymous]

Yes, hockey friends on twitter & FB.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I made a lot of friends through a local food board a few years back, but I have now met most of them IRL, although the majority are really just facebook friends at this point. My two best friends IRL were first internet friends through that board though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, also through a parenting board, beginning almost fourteen years ago and now in contact via FB. I've talked with all of them on the phone, met most of them and intend to meet the rest within the next few years. All of them have at least met one of the women I've met (ie, they're all exactly who they say they are). Some have stayed with my family, my family with theirs - I've traveled to meet a few, and vice versa. We have routinely chipped in financially to help each other through difficult times, handed down clothes via the mail, sent each other handmade gifts and local specialties. These are very intimate and supportive friendships that mean a lot to me. Many are every bit as important as my "real life" friends and I treasure the truth that I was interested in them first (out of hundreds of people on the same board) because of the way they expressed their intelligence and character in writing, not because we were thrown together by circumstance.

Sounds very familiar! I have a similar group that spun off from ParentSoup to a different board and finally to our own private board. Almost everything you described is identical. Definitely some of my most treasured friendships!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. And I guess I'm weird because I don't accept "friend" requests on FB from friends of friends who I don't know personally. I don't covet or accumulate "friends" that way. I have 30 friends on FB, and they're all real life friends and family. I don't need 1700 friends; I'm an adult and this is not a popularity contest.

Don't be so reductive. I don't either. But I'm an adult and I love the richness of many viewpoints and all of the intelligent, interesting people I might otherwise never have met. I have a few friends-of-friends on FB because their responses were so compelling, so insightful that I couldn't resist getting to know these people better. Many of them are academics and activists doing work that intrigues me. Because I put so much time into my family and friends in real life, I don't have time for as many dinner parties as I'd like. And I'm not going to miss out on knowing someone amazing because she never comes to the East Coast or I'm not likely to get to Riga soon.