Friends in a Box

One of the most common questions asked online is whether or not the friendships that we make online are actually real. If you can't touch the person, can't reach across a table and smack the back of their head when they say something stupid, can't play footsies under a table... does that mean that they're somehow less of a person than the friends you know in the flesh?

It's a stupid fucking question. Just because our correspondences are digital these days and delivered instantaneously doesn't mean that we're not communicating. If anything, we're communicating a hell of a lot better than back in the day when people would send one another letters. What with figuring out postage, getting someone on a pony and waiting the 3 months for something to arrive, I'm amazed that there are so many history books from that time detailing how people fell in love through the post.

People did bond through letters. Granted, it was usually the upper class, those individuals who were lucky enough to not have had to get to work and instead were afforded the opportunity to go to school and learn how to read and write. Essentially, you had to be white and if you weren't, you had to be pretty damn industrious. I can't even find nice stationary half the time these days, and I really would like to write letters from time to time. I miss doing it.

When I was a senior in high school, I started a friendship by writing a letter to a guy that I thought was a great writer. We actually spent time writing to one another for almost a year before I began to attend the college that he was at. Even after he'd moved away, it was far more common for us to write than to phone. I suppose I could blame that on the fact that we were both writers and so that type of communication came naturally to us, but whatever the reasoning, the fact remains. We preferred writing. Hell, I loved having a chance to get mail that wasn't bills or junk.

We've reconnected over the years and have one another's e-mail address. However, we write to one another infrequently now. Strange, considering that there wasn't more than a couple of weeks that would pass between letters for a solid few years running. We no longer have to fret over finding paper, envelopes of the correct postage (make up your damn minds how much you're going to rape me for, will you, USPS??). A simple click of the mouse, a little typing on the keyboard and it would be said and done. Yet we don't.

Still, I don't consider him any less of a friend than if he lived in the same state and we hung out like we did back in '93-'94. Just because I can't reach out and touch him doesn't make him any less of a person to me. The majority of our friendship was started through letters, long before we had our first handshake and even longer before we split our first pitcher of margaritas. Probably one of the coolest things that happened when we DID meet in the flesh was that we started talking as if we'd already established our friendship. Why? BECAUSE WE HAD.

I absolutely think that you can create friendships and relationships online. I don't think the fact that there is distance or ethernet cable between you is a good enough reason to dismiss the reality that you are communicating with another human being. Our computer systems might be getting more and more sophisticated and the number of idiotic, barely literate morons online may be increasing faster than Tribbles on the Enterprise, but there still needs to be a real flesh and blood person behind that keyboard.

I've personally developed many different types of friendships online. Casual ones, similar to the people that you pass in your everyday activities, know their name and wave and say hi but wouldn't know their phone number. Intrinsic ones, where you feel as if you've known the person forever and just haven't met in person yet, where you share your secrets and feel like you've found a kindred spirit. I've developed transient friendships as well, ones where I once communicated with them regularly and felt like I knew them and then moved on without really giving it a second thought. No hard feelings, just moving along and reconnecting later with a "man, we never talk anymore!"

I've even developed friendships that defy description. You can laugh if you want to, but I have found a couple of people who have come into my life through no other means than through the computer who I trust on a deeper level than even close family members. I've never poked them in the chest and called them a lightweight for puking after their 12th shot of (take your pick), but it feels more real than the people I actually HAVE done that to.

While I've never wrapped my arms around them and given the deep, powerful hug that comes with a friendship that goes deeper than understanding... I feel as if I have with my mind. That I've managed to pull off something even better than that. That I can "get" a couple of people out there without needing to look into their eyes.

Some might call that lame, I call that fucking special. I even feel sorry for the people who haven't been able to accomplish something like that.

The thing is, I think most of us have experienced that on some level. You're on the damn computer, reading this right now. If you were out in the community, I might doubt the truth of my statement, but being that you're all here, I'm calling you out on it. Online friendships are very much real. Online flirting might be comparable to batting your eyelashes at the check-out girl, but when you've shared your thoughts on topics with other people, when you've shared your stories - those things that you could never bring yourself to say out loud if they were in the same room as you - congratulations! You've got yourself a relationship. Make it into whatever definition you want, you've bonded with that person. They are in your life, even if it's only temporarily. They have made a mark on you.

So stop bitching that online friendships aren't real. Stop differentiating between "IRL" ("In Real Life") friends and online friends. It belittles you. Correspondence isn't fiction unless that's what you're aiming for it to be. It's communication. It's bonding. It's friendship. It's how they used to do it in the old days, but without the pony shit that needs shoveling.

So stop shoveling your own bullshit. And if you're not the one dealing it out, stop listening to the people who are trying to pile it on you.

Congrats! You've got friends!


Discussion of the Day:

Are online friendships the same as the classic definition of friendships? Is it possible to become close to someone without ever being physically close to them?