Daisy Razor: Friendship is Magic

I was thinking about the recent spate of features blaming modern loneliness on the internet as I returned home last night from a Hairpin meet-up where I'd spent two hours happily conversing with people who'd previously only lived in my computer.

Then I started to count the number of people I consider good friends whom I'd met in various places online over the years. I stopped when I hit a dozen, because I wasn't sure how to differentiate between the people I now regularly see in person (including my husband) and the people I talk to all the damn time yet have never actually met face to face.

Needless to say, I don't feel terribly isolated by newfangled modes of communication.

When I got home I posted this to Facebook:

I keep reading about how the internet makes us more socially isolated, but I also keep meeting people online then in real life who are awesome and fun. Maybe I'm internetting wrong?

And this is an abbreviated version of the conversation that followed with some of my internet people:

Meaghan: Obviously we are horrible, worthless people.
Meaghan: as are you
Me: Obviously. Us losers have to stick together.
Kristen: I'm really a psycho killer. I just assumed you were as well.
Meaghan: I'm actually a large, West Indian man named Jeff. I like sumo wrestling and crochet.
Michelle: I am a horrible hateful stalking criminally wanted person. Boo!
Me: I am a platypus with incredible makeup skills.
Michelle: I like yours better.
Me: Originally I wrote "hobo," but then I was like, "I don't want to be a hobo! I want to be a mammal that lays eggs!"
Michelle: You will have to raise those eggs, you know. Hobos are guardians to no one.
Melissa: Damn. How did I, the only normal person in all the world, meet YOU GUYS? It's insane, really. [NOTE: The first time I met Melissa in person, we were staying in a hotel room together and she said, 'I hope you don't mind nudity, because I don't really wear clothes when I don't have to."]