* This is an old entry from my old blog, edited/updated for this one. Hope you like it! I've been missing these people since I haven't seen anyone for a long time now. Hope they're all doing well!
I remember during the earlier days of the world wide web, people used to say that it was hard to trust people online. Can you make real friends online? Do the online friends you chat with tell you the truth about who they really are? In these days of catfishing and trolling I think a lot of people will still answer in the negative but thankfully, my experience with online friendships has been very good. Yes, you can make real friends online. I know I did.
In the early days of blogging, when it was more about personal experiences than it is about OOTDs or the latest events and places to see and be seen, I came across people like me who were trying out that new thing called a blog. Through the years, even though some of them have since moved on and stopped blogging, we have kept in touch through social media and have even met once or twice (as much as my faraway provincial life can take me). The friendships, despite the distance and the lack of face to face encounters still exists. For that, I will always be grateful. It is amazing to see all of us grow up and move on with our lives: getting married, have kids, move to a different country (or in some cases move back home). My online friends have been there to support me when I had surgery and was worrying about the possibility of cancer. They were supportive during the loss of my father. If that isn’t proof that online friendships are real friendships, I don’t know what is.
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| My Blogger Friends |
It was through online friendships on a showbiz fan forum that I made some very good friends of mine. It was also an online friendship that paved the way and helped maintain the friendships I gained as a football fan. In my home-office-home kind of life tucked away in a rural part of the country, it is my online friendships that have helped me thrive and keep in touch with people who have the same interests as I do. People who help me keep in touch with a part of my life that I had once left behind when I moved to the province.
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| Football Friends |
If you’re also wondering, I would also say yes ladies: you can also make friends with guys online without the assumption that it is for dating or hooking up. This was once a fear I had about online friendships with guys (due to an overprotective father who probably thought all men online were predators). I have had male blogger friends who have never made any false assumptions of the friendships that we had online. You can make friends online without dating them. I’m not saying that there are no guys who are online to find girls to date or hook up with, but I am saying that there are guys online who are there just because they are. And if you are friendly, they can be too and you can both keep it at a friend level without worrying about any expectations.
I guess that’s the thing about being online and not seeing a person face to face. You don’t need to make any assumptions because of your gender. You relate more to them as a person. I could be wrong, but that’s how my experiences have been so far. I’ve been lucky, I guess. That’s not to say that I haven’t crushed on anyone that I’ve been friends with online. That has happened too. BUT since he was clearly just being a friend, I didn’t want to ruin it. That crush has passed, that ship has sailed and I’m good with it.
To sum things up, I have been blessed to have made some very good friends online. People who I would like to be in touch with until we are all too grandparent-levels old. I am grateful for the friends I’ve made, the friendships I’ve maintained, and the friends I will still make online. It’s a scary and often catfish(y), troll-laden online world out there, but sometimes, if you look hard enough, you will find there are still good people out there and that it’s not such a bad place to be.
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