Adams Douglas writes:
|   Meeting Online Friends
|   
|    I have to say that if it were not for the friends I have met and come
|    to know online, my offline life would be less enjoyable, and certainly
|    not what it is today; a wealth of literate communication with
|    worthwhile folks.
|    
|    If I go down the list, it's often hard to say where the online
|    meetings leave off and the rl meetings take over; is there a social
|    status here that takes into consideration people that I've met through
|    net friends who are online as well? I hope so, because while I
|    remember finding some folks who are dear to me on the net, I also have
|    hazy memories of when our connections were actually made.
|    
|    My current primary Relationship began last year after a mutual
|    net.friend introduced us; our friendship would not be what it is now
|    without the intimacy of being able to communicate via email and irc.
|    Over a year of closeness, and getting better all the time.
|    
|    I am afraid to even try counting the close friends and lovers who have
|    come from the wonderful resources that being online provides me.
|    Getting a Life has gotten easier, and sharing it is more effective
|    online than by phone when we are not living in the same location.
|    
|    I have also relocated friends from my past who had lost touch with me.
|    It is grand to discover them through my computer, as alive and glad to
|    be in touch as they were when I knew them before.
|    
|    I can't imagine having found Leather as a lifestyle and interest
|    without the net.support from my friends who share my interests in it.
|    All those long, late night textual contexts, hooked directly into our
|    intents and desires for interaction outside of electronic
|    communication.
|    
|    Words work better for me if I've had a chance to spend time talking
|    with someone on the net. I draw on instincts that have the resources
|    of established communication when we speak in person. Hopes and dreams
|    get a shot at meditated articulation when I have a chance to write
|    about them and perfect their angles of entry into the perceptions of
|    another.
|    
|    When I logged in for the first time, I was seeking not partners, but
|    friends. An escape from the real world in the beginning, I shortly
|    began to view those I knew electronically with the same respect and
|    connection that I had always hoped to have with those I knew before.
|    Something about human contact in an atmosphere of detached focus gives
|    me power to discern what it is that we have in common, without the
|    distractions of other things going on around us.
|    
|    I would not trade the people I have found through the net for all the
|    Meaningful Relationships that traditional society and its methods
|    offer. And frankly, having both would take more time than I've got
|    left in my life. Looks like I'm past the point of no turning back; the
|    die is cast, the move is made. I find it hard to relate to people who
|    *don't* have net access, as a matter of fact. When I meet someone
|    offline, my interest is something along the lines of "here's my email
|    address, can we continue what we don't finish of this conversation
|    there?" with a hasty retreat if they don't have any connection to the
|    net. It just isn't the same keeping in touch by phone.
|    
|    I remember when my friend hooked me up to the net a few years ago. The
|    words that ring in my ears as someone who has no net access or
|    interest in it walks away are 'If you think 1200 baud is special,
|    wait'll you get to 2400, or 9600. You'll have a hard time talking to
|    people who are at 1200 baud; the communication level will just be all
|    wrong for your tastes. And just wait till you realize that the only
|    people you are in close contact with are the ones on the net....'
|    
|    That friend was right. I cherish the ability to sit and stare at the
|    words on the screen, place them in an order which gives clear meaning
|    to another person, send them on their way after reading them over to
|    make sure they say what I want heard and understood, and send myself a
|    copy so that I can remember those words and live by them. I like being
|    able to send an announcement to a lot of people at once, and know that
|    the chances are good that they will not only read it, but remember it,
|    save it, and have it where they can find it later. I like being able
|    to have a conversation that no living ears can hear, but which reaches
|    the heart of the one with whom I am speaking.
|    
|    Manx
|    
|    Copyright 1995 by Manx, all rights reserved.