Online Friends
I was reading a post last week by a person I consider an online friend and comrade, Becky Robinson, and was struck by two questions. “What makes a friend?” and “What is friendship worth?” She was writing about another person that we both have contact with, Dan Rockwell. Dan is also an online friend, and reached out to help me when I was struggling with an organizational issue. I have not met either of these people in real life (IRL), nor face to face (F2F), but we are truly connected.
Social Media (SoMe) has made it possible to connect with people at great distances and at various stations in life, but who are of similar mindset and heart-set.
Best Friends
One of my best and dearest friends is someone I met in Junior High School. We were nerds and geeks together long before it became fashionable. We traversed the halls of Jr. and Sr. High School together. When we left home for college, we went our separate ways. And for almost 40 years, the tiniest things would make me think of “O”, and smile. A certain style of braid, a certain piece of Rachmaninoff, a certain Ukrainian or eastern European phrase, a news story about NASA, and my occasional trips home, even though she is she was no longer living there.
Through the wonders of technology, I finally tracked her down about 2 years ago, and visited her home and met her family.
We talked and laughed as if we had just seen each other in class that afternoon. Our bond is set in the cement of love. Neither time nor distance is any real match for friendship and love.
There are people online who I have never met and most of them I will never meet IRL. But they have become some of my closest and dearest friends, nonetheless. We are connected by invisible and almost unbreakable bonds. Just like the bond that ties me to “O”.
What makes a friend a friend?
“A friend is someone who takes up residence in
our hearts and in our minds.”
~ Martina
Is there someone you should be looking up?
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/88438917@N00/355460614/
Related articles
Great question about friendship. Perhaps it occurs in layers – each shared experience of joy and challenges faced together adds another layer.
Keep communicating – keep adding to the layers.
Kumud
P.S. Wow. 40 years. That’s a long time between face-to-face meetings
Yes, Kumud. it is a long time, but like I said in the post, it was as if no time had passed at all. Friendship, real friendship, is a funny, multi-layered and odd thing. It is anchor when we need it, and a tether when all else seems to fail us.
Thanks
P.S.- The followup is that I texted her to let her know, and she texted me this evening to say that it “made her feel loved.”
What a thoughtful post, and so pertinent to today’s culture. It astounds me that the connections I have made online have cemented quickly. Meeting people who share a quest for spiritual fulfillment, educational innovation, technology, odd considerations of time and space happened online so fast as opposed to F2F where struggling to get past the “dance of socializing” and to the meat of a friendship can take years. 140 characters means you must bare your soul pointedly, deliberately, and quickly. While I know that I may never meet some of my online friends, I may be more calculated in planning future motorcycle trips to possibly meet some. If I haven’t heard from or “chatted” with some of my online friends, I become as concerned about their welfare as I am about an IRL friend that I may not hear from. Friendship is what makes life life. It is what spreads and grows love. It is what makes the world go around. Thanks, Martina. I hope someday to ride my Harley to your town!
Peg
Thanks Peg, I look forward to meeting you. I, however, will not be on a Harley.
I think you are correct about “Twitter friends,” 140 characters doesn’t leave you a lot of room for connecting AND BS-ing. It makes you cut to the chase of what you want to express.
Thank you for reading, commenting….and yes, being a friend.
Martina
Very thoughtful and made me think- article. Smile…I read your Bio a while ago and noticed your follow, thank you. I pay attention to some leaders and you happen to be one of them. Keep up the good work. Emily
Thank you Martina!
I enjoyed this weekend with three close friends. One happens to be my sister, who flew in from Philadelphia with one of her oldest friends to be here for two days-we “had a ball” just hanging out – went to a most (most) unusual gospel service on Sunday (rare for me since I seldom set foot inside a church, well, it was hardly a church at all come to think of it LOL) and the art museum, food of course was a big part of the picture – walking, and we were given a beautiful sun filled warm spring day with vast blue sky-the next day was cold and rainy and yielded a fire in the fireplace – and then they flew home and my twitter friends took up the slack with some very very lighthearted BSing (your term from above) (you were a big part of that – Kumud took up the banter on the vagueries of English and voila that’s what friends do – they don’t have to be profound, just loving.
Loved being here with you for this moment.
Wayne
That sounds wonderful, Wayne. Friends and family, including our online families, help us keep it together. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
You are so right that friendship based on the bonds of Love simply is and ever shall be. You are one of these people for me. My life is blessed by your friendship and I look for to the day when we meet IRL and I can look into your beautiful eyes and we can laugh together. I love you, my wonderful friend. xo
Likewise Shelley. Thanks.