Pages

Sunday, June 25, 2006

We Interrupt This Meme to Bring You the Message that Andrea Totally Rocks



Over time, as I've become more and more involved in the blogging community, I feel I have gotten to know so many amazing people so well despite having never met them in person. At times I have felt I've begun to form honest-to-goodness friendships with people I've never once met face-to-face-- in some cases, with people whose photographs I've never seen, who have never even told me their real names.

Since having a child, the unavoidable changes in my lifestyle have meant that I have grown apart from so many of the real-life friends I once had, who had been mostly young, single, and childless, the relationships that had depended on weekly face-to-face interaction and common experience slowly fading as I found myself unable to attend spontaneous last-minute gatherings, or answer midnight calls. And finding new friends, which has always been a difficult challenge for me as a natural introvert, has at times has felt nigh impossible now that so little of my time feels like my own. When I began blogging, I was beginning to feel desperately lonely.

Connecting with others, especially other mothers and fathers, online, finding so many people with lives and thoughts and feelings so similar to my own, has helped so much with the loneliness, isolation, confusion, and sheer inadequacy I often felt as a new parent. Blogging, in so many ways, has kept me from losing what's left of my mind.

But I still miss my old in-person friendships. At times, I have wondered whether this world I have built for myself online is really nothing more than a comforting illusion, a band-aid solution to my social problems. Was I wasting my time, forming virtual relationships, instead of trying to find "real" friends?

I have found myself wishing, often, almost daily, that some of the people I know online could come over for dinner or go out for a drink in real life.

But the idea of actually meeting a fellow blogger I'd come to think of as a friend in person also made me very nervous.

After all, we all sound so much smarter, and funnier, and kinder online, with the aid of the delete button.

What if it turned out we didn't get along in person? What if I ruined a blog friendship by failing to meet the expectations of someone I'd only ever shown my most thought-out thoughts, my best side, to?

I met Andrea, from Little Bald Doctors, today. And as I have suspected since the first time I read one of her blog entries, she totally rocks.

I just found out she's already written this amazing blog entry about us meeting, and I'm speechless. Because seriously people, she makes me sound so much more awesome than I actually am. I am such a major geek. And she makes me sound, like, totally suave, but I was just as nervous about meeting her as she was about meeting me.

But Andrea has an openness about her that is completely disarming, and she is just as witty and interesting in person as she is on her blog, and before we'd talked for an hour, I felt like I'd known her for years. Which was a weird feeling to process, because, despite knowing all sorts of details about her daily life from having read about it online for months, I'd only just met her in person.

And, gosh darn it, I think she might actually like me. EVEN WITHOUT MY DELETE BUTTON.

10 comments:

Andrea said...

You're better without the delete button.

Ruth Dynamite said...

I always used to think that people who met other people online and were driven to meet them in person were completely nuts and would wind up on Dateline NBC one day...but that was before I "met" women bloggers.

Glad for your happy meeting.

Jaelithe said...

Ah, Ruth, thank you for expressing such faith in my sanity ;)

I think we should call Dateline and tell them to cover BlogHer!

Not that I'll be there, since I live in the midwest, but . . .

Cristina said...

Just read Andrea's post and had to hop over here. Glad you guys were able to connect in person. Here's to a new and budding "real life" friendship!

Debbie said...

I'm SUPER glad you both hung out and had a good time. as it should be - when I think of you both, I think of you as kindred spirits and good friends with each other.

*beams*

Raquita said...

thanks for the positive words over on my end, although I do still feel like I got a dunce cap on only the really savy see.
Moving on to your post - I'm so glad you met a blogger friend in person, I hvaen't gotten up the nerve to actually do that. funny you and I met in person first and know more about each other now from blogging than we ever would have other wise. You are wonderfully special, and i'm glad I get to know you now.

Mom101 said...

I love reading both perspectives, where each of you thought you geeked it up only to find you actually connected. How great for both of you.

Her Bad Mother said...

I totally believe that both you and Andrea totally rock. And how totally awesome is it that you got to meet?

I just had my first real life meeting with a bloggy friend - MotherBumper - in a week when I totally needed it, having lost (been broken up with by) a real life friend. And it was awesome. It rocked. Now I want to meet everybody...

Lisa said...

Yeay....

So happy you guys got to get together!

Stacy said...

Great post. It's so neat to hear about bloggers meeting bloggers. I am glad you guys enjoyed each other's company. It's always so nerve wracking meeting new people, at least for me.