Oct 13, 2011
Meeting Internet Friends is FUN!
Recently I had the distinct pleasure of meeting my online friend Marla Taviano!
Marla was in town for a speaking engagement and found a few minutes to stop over at my house and chat! It was a blast. I’m sooo glad it worked out for her to come!
We sat in the gorgeous fall afternoon and talked blogging, speaking, life, schooling… like old/new friends.
Then all too soon, it was time to go. Which of course means “Get a picture! We have to take a picture!”
Then we started talking about how funny it is to meet people in real life from the internet and how they always surprise you in some way or another–height, voice, accent, hair (aHEM… Shaun Groves). It was at this exact moment that I turned to her and said,
“Yeah, I knew you’d be tall. How big are you?”
Then *SNAP!* goes the camera.
Thankfully we had a good laugh about it. Marla has a sense of humor (thank GOD!) and didn’t get offended by my blunder. I guess I’m so used to talking to toddlers that I forgot I was talking to an adult!
The internet has made the world so small in some ways. Personally, I’ve had good experiences meeting people from the internet, which was such a scary no-no thing 10 years ago.
I’ll never forget hearing about what BooMama said right before the Compassion Bloggers reunion last December.
(And you have to conjure up your best deep-South accent)
Well, y’all…time to go meet up with a bunch of people we met on the internet…”
Have you met up with online friends in real life (IRL, if you will)? Does it still weird you out?
I’ve made a number of friends through blogging and Twitter. I actually got my first job in the technology industry through a comment left on a blog post I wrote about looking for a job.
Someone left a comment on my blog a while ago with a note saying, “I’m not sure if you know me, but I’ve been reading your blog for a while and see you occasionally at church.” I thought it was odd that they’d never said hi to me in church! My first Sunday at Hope I introduced myself to Tim and Abraham, who were talking with each other. I knew them from Twitter and told them I always think it’s odd when you see someone IRL who you know from the web and don’t say hi. Yeah, it can be a little awkward, but if I don’t introduce myself I feel a little bit like a stalker. I’ve met a few people because we happened to follow each other on Twitter and realized we were in the same place at the same time.
I am going to the WOF conference in St Paul next weekend with my mom and will be sitting with a blogger, now friend and this will be the first time we are meeting IRL!! I am SOOOO pumped!
I’ve met up with internet friends in real life before- one of them being Marla! :-) We had a big xanga get-together, back in the day when a bunch of us all blogged daily over there. Now blogging is rare for me… Such good times. :-)
Have I told you lately that I love you? And that you’re beautiful? And that I would come back all the way back to MN just to spend another hour on the porch with you? But I want to meet your babies next time!!
I’ve met lots and lots and LOTS of online friends in real life and even stayed in their homes. It’s an incredible thing, and I’ve loved every minute of it.
Isn’t it just awesome when someone you already liked just becomes that much more dear to you?? Soooo cool.
YES! I’ve seem to have fallen off the blogging wagon for now but have had a wonderful experience meeting another blogger in real life! I met up with Heidi Heidi; aka, http://minnesotamom.wordpress.com/ at OPH in Edina two different times I was in town. (Maybe you should join us next time – ha!)
Also, technically I met my husband on Myspace (remember that old site? :)) It was a total chance happening and we had mutual contacts we later found out about so I’m pretty sure we would have met anyway. But I have to say that our first message back-and-forth was a friendly conversation about your FIL and Calvinism because I read on Jeromy’s page that he was a fan of his books and I had just visited Bethlehem for the first time a couple weeks prior. I even offered to send him my sermon notes!!! So really, he brought us together! LOL!
I would absolutely LOVE to one day meet Amanda from http://mandigirl-muses.blogspot.com/ who I consider a real friend though we met through blogging and keep up through FB. And I probably will if I ever make it down to Texas. She is my “mommy hero” and such a sweet spirit.
Funniest thing…I actually connected with another fellow blogger via your blog! Jackie commented on a post I wrote after reading my comment on one of your posts. We did eventually meet since one of her really good friends moved up to MN to attend Bethlehem Seminary. Smallest world. But yes, I love to meet fellow bloggers! Jackie and I have meet a couple of times and the emerging friendship has been such a blessing! Yay for bloggers:)
I think you guys could totally pass as sisters.
I met with a fellow-blogger once. I thought it was such a fun adventure. We met up as families, walked all over Quebec City together (they were in town for the weekend) and we actually ate supper with them. I was so taken with them all….and then i guess the feelings weren’t mutual because after exchanging a few photos from our time, we never heard from them again. BOO HOO!! Now I’m too self-conscious to try again!!
I met my husband through the internet! we were blog friends for a while and he visited my country(dominican republic) several times to do evangelism. 2 years later we were wed :D
I also met another fellow blogger IRL on a trip to miami with my mom and cousins…we went to the mall and my friend drove all the way from Orlando to meet me. We’re both evangelists so we made it an evangelism/meeting day at the mall. It was an amazing day! But I haven’t talked to her in a while :( I was busy with med school and had kinda stopped blogging as frequently.
People from the internet that I want to meet IRL one day:
Your husband
Aaron Armstrong (bloggingtheologically.com)
Shaun Groves
Carlos Whittaker (ragamuffinsoul.com … but you went on a Compassion trip with his wife Heather, didn’t you? So you would already know /about/ him, at least.)
A random guy I met on some message boards and have kept up with for years.
I like it when these people post videos of themselves. I always think “I did NOT expect his voice to sound like that!”