So much for the myth of the lonely, pimply geek.

Camassia, back home from a trip that included visiting new blogfriends, makes this observation:

I notice that . . . [friends she met] emphasize the real flesh-and-blood quality of the experience even though it was brought on by the ethereal medium of the Internet. The fact is, I have way more fleshly friends now than I had after three years of living in L.A. and struggling to meet people through the usual social spots. Much of today’s communication technologies, in fact, seem to be counteracting the socially atomizing effects of the technologies that came before them. I’m not sure what the larger implications of that are, but it has certainly made my life a lot more enjoyable. [Emphasis added]

Sounds true! I don't know how many of you have actually met podmates and blogfriends yet, or what the experience was like. (I've actually only met Tamar so far; it's typical of Manhattan, not blogdom, that Ronni is my neighbor but we haven't managed to meet yet; David and Sara have reunited, or so it felt, with Danny). I invite you to report on your experiences in the comments (or on your own blog). However -- and meeting Tamar only confirmed this for me -- my guess is that any fears of disliking in person someone whose "voice" you loved are quite unfounded, as are any fears that people are using computers to avoid 3-D social life.

On the contrary, we are what we write. It felt like Tamar and I already knew each other in some essential way. Blogging together certainly bypasses all the formalities and unfamiliarities, so you meet with a remarkable level of ready-made intimacy. The person's physical presence just fills out and sensuously enriches your sense of them (in unpredictable and sometimes surprising ways). I feel confident that if I met any of you with whom I've been blogging back and forth -- and I hope to -- our companionship would be as eager and easy as our online raillery. Personality quirks can easily be adjusted for where there is already affinity.

So the result of blogging is that I feel much less, not more, isolated; like I have real (if potential) new friends, not some quarantined category of people I can only ever write to. And like I now have a welcome in places where I would have been a complete stranger before. (Iceland, Millie!)

The only shock, I suspect, could be finding out how old, or how young, somebody really is. Our voices are ageless. Our bodies, alas, are not. I've had the experience several times of feeling like a peer with someone who turned out to be half my age or less. (Does that mean I thought s/he was older or I was younger? . . . Both!) I wonder whether we will make as much of an effort to meet blogfriends of a different generation as those near our own age. I'm not sure we will, but if so, it might help to break down the age segregation that afflicts our society.

So have you met blogfriends, and what was it like? Whether you've met them in the flesh or not, do you feel your blogfriendships have significantly enlarged your circle of true friendships? Come and tell. (Or tell and send the link.)

- amba

UPDATE: Triticale confirms my hunch that "we are what we write," posting a marvelous account of how closely the fine shadings of his response to the person match his response to the blog.

Comments

[Tamar]

"On the contrary, we are what we write. It felt like Tamar and I already knew each other in some essential way. Blogging together certainly bypasses all the formalities and unfamiliarities, so you meet with a remarkable level of ready-made comfort and intimacy."

Yes, that's how I felt too. Well put, Amba. And yet I also wonder if we choose who to meet "in the flesh" based on "you are what you write." For example, would we want/choose to meet someone whose writing disturbed or concerned us - or was so "other" to who we are?

[amba]

I'm sure we do so choose. We may correspond with people we clash with, but we probably don't care to be friends with them (unless the clashing is of a fun and friendly sort, which does happen -- you can really like someone you disagree with).

(I'm working on those questions!)

[Ronni Bennett]

You're right, amba. being neighbors and not having met yet is so New York. Funny sorta related story:

Many years ago at a party in the Village, I met a really nice guy. We'd had a lovely time, and he offered to walk me home. As we got closer to my apartment (then on Waverly Place), he looked at me kind of sideways and said, "Where did you say you live? What address?"

Hah! We'd both lived in the same building for several years and never met - not at the door or the mailboxes or the laundry room. I often wonder how many terrific people are right under our noses, but we somehow pass in the night, never meeting.

[Greta]

Thank you very much, Amba.
This is exactly my aim with my posts on Iceland; that travelers will feel welcome to Iceland; that they will get to know the relaxed sense of freedom and peace that this country has to offer in a turbulent world; that they will become curious to experience the wonders of nature in our unique island.
...Welcome, Amba!

[sleipner]

A very similar situation occurs in online gaming. I played Everquest for years, and now play EQ2, other similar games include Worlds of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and several others.

People in those games usually are required to group with multiple others to get their goals accomplished, and often form friendships, guilds of people with similar interests or goals, and can chat with people on the other side of the globe.

The main difference is that there are conventions at which fans of these games can go to meet each other, often finding out that the petite female gnome they know so well in-game is a 300 pound 6'4" ex linebacker.

I suppose there probably are "bloggercons" out there too, I'm new to this arena.

[karen]

amba,

I often wonder how trusting I can be with the people I feel such affinity with. Things written and posted, I can't take back. All of it is personal and a part of what makes me myself. I always feel welcomed at Ambivablog and truly admire and respect you and even the ones I do contend w/ on views (sleip, you hear me??) My world was pretty lonely before I met my blogpals. I enjoy the diversity. if ever in the Northeast Kingdom of VT, let me know, I'd love to meet any/all of you. I, personally, do not travel well.

My husband hates the computer. I try to share w/him my conversations and all I've learned, to no avail. All he doesn't care to discuss, I blab here.

Thank you for your friendship. :)

[amba]

Sleip: Really? Do people cast themselves that totally against type? How liberating, in a way!

Ronni is off to a women's bloggercon of sorts called BlogHer. I'm jealous.

Karen, we have been there before I knew you. We have friends in Burlington, in Peacham, and close karate friends who just moved to Stowe. We have to make a trip up there again. I would so love to meet you -- and the cows! Thank you, I am honored that you feel at home here.

Greta, my husband and I travel a lot, or we did before he was disabled -- and we still do a little. But we never travel as tourists, just to see places; we're always going to visit somebody. Now I have someone to visit in Iceland!

(I passed through on the way to Japan, in the old days when planes couldn't make it all the way. I bought a beautiful woolen cloak there.)

[Neil]

After a few months of blogging, I noticed that I've become part of a a group of people in Los Angeles who read and write on each other's blogs. One of them recently suggested that we meet at a bar next week. Frankly, I'm a little nervous about the whole thing because I'm not sure I'm exactly the same person in the flesh that I am when I'm blogging (where I have a lot more freedom to write whatever the hell I want). I know it sounds neurotic, but will I disappoint them? Have you ever gone to a lecture or book reading by a favorite author, and the guy is just plain dull?

[Tamar]

Neil - the title of my post today coincidentally is: "Just be yourself." Good luck with the meeting. I wonder who you will feel comfortable with - or not?

[amba]

Neil --

For many years I would have had that fear. I didn't stop worrying that people would find me dull until . . . when? It took decades. I was at least in my forties and maybe even over 50.

What happened to change it? I'm not sure, except that I know an important part of it was a prolonged, crazy relationship (no, not sexual, at least not literally) with two people in which I made a pretty complete fool of myself and lived to tell the tale. That was such a great psychological workout that after that I just, I don't know . . . accepted myself and didn't care so much if others did or not? It's a mystery. I earned my spurs as a human, I guess. Took the plunge into folly.

[sleipner]

One big difference between blogs & online gaming is that generally (though not always) people think through what they type on blogs a little more carefully than the impromptu conversations they have on line.

Casting against type is quite common - perhaps a form of wishful thinking - but there are some who try to pick characters like themselves. I know of a guy who in real life is nicknamed "The Ogre" who always plays one in game too. The most common form is male players playing female characters - often by guys who are more straight than Bush. Not sure about the psychology behind that, but sometimes other players are more generous to or friendly with female toons.

[sleipner]

Course the generosity may be due to the fact that most female game toons have enormous gazangas ;)

[amba]

I think that should be "humongous gazangas," Sleip.

Do they really call them "toons"? Shades of one of my favorite movies, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

[karen]

Peacham is about 45min-1 hr away(South) of here. Wow!!! That close and I wish I had known you then...

Stowe is down the road about 40 mins(again, South) and on Rte 100, the Route that runs through here. B-town, 1 1/2 hrs away...south. Not anything really North of here except Canada :0)

[sleipner]

Yeah, toons is the commonly accepted term.

I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way
- Jessica Rabbit

[Spud]

Hey Amba,
You've been to Peacham?? I grew up in Groton which is the next town south of there. Cool. Make sure you visit me whenever you're up this way again. But don't visit Karen. Just kidding karen. :-)

[triticale]

I suspect that taking on the female gaming character is similar to the hetero crossdressing of Ed Woods and many others. There is, at an abstract level, penetration involved.