My best friends are from the internet

Guest post by Ella West
#Relationships#friendships#harry potter#internet#making friends
Best internet friends forever~

My best friends are from the internet, and it’s not really that weird. No, that’s not true. It’s incredibly weird, but that’s because we are weird people, not because the process of making friends on the internet is inherently weird. It took me a long time to realize just how unusual it is to make friends online, though.

We live in a world where online dating is becoming increasingly mainstream (Match.com recently funded a study that showed one-in-five relationships now start online) but somehow, finding friends online is still seen as abnormal. And that, to put it eloquently, is really dumb.

When I discovered the world of Harry Potter fandom at the tail-end of middle school, I fell into it with a passion. I was terribly awkward at school; I gained and promptly lost five different friend groups between the fourth grade and my senior year of high school, some in deeply traumatic ways. Have you ever been kicked out of a trick or treating group? Because I have! My little third grade friends were such assholes, man.

The internet, my 13-year-old self discovered, was full of clever people who liked books to the same disturbingly codependent degree that I did. In the magical land of the internet, I didn’t have to force uninterested playmates to reenact The Westing Game in my backyard, or indulge my tragic crush on Lyra from The Golden Compass. There were people on the internet posting long and deeply involved theses about the symbolism behind serpent imagery in Chamber of Secrets, and how Ron was totally going to marry Hermione and anyone who thought otherwise was personally victimizing JK Rowling and was probably going to hell.

Rachael and Abbey
Abbey and Rachael met on a Harry Potter fan forum.

My high school graduating class had 200 people, and any friendships you could form were almost entirely based on geographic proximity. I had friends from my middle and high school, sure, but when things got rough the online communities I was a part of gave me a real chance to move beyond my cloistered suburban home town. Said the angsty teenager: “I finally found people who got me.” I’m glad I had that option.

This discovery was back in the early 2000s, when the internet was still relatively new for mainstream America and online dating was almost as weird as online friend making, so it’s understandable some people at the time would be confused by the concept of forming close friendships online. For a very long time, when I spoke about the people I met online, I called them my “friends from camp.” I needed a way to explain how I knew these people whenever they came up in a real life conversation, despite not living in the state, or even the same country. And they came up in conversation a lot. Your closest friends have a tendency to do that.

While some girls were trying to climb the high school social ladder via astute application of glitter eyeshadow or playing field hockey, I was feeling incredibly superior chatting with forum friends late into the night and posting thousand word essays viewing house elves through the lens of social justice and anti-oppression work.

Surprisingly, my online social life still had all the trappings of normal adolescence, from girly “sleepover” chatrooms to wild popularity contests. I won’t lie to you: I genuinely and deeply wanted to be cool on my Harry Potter message board. There were some Big Name Fans (so popular they basically had their own fan followings) who had been around forever (read: since before Goblet of Fire came out) and had all these amazing inside jokes. They commanded the respect of the entire forum any time they jumped in a thread, and we all desperately wanted to be a part of their in-crowd.

Somewhere along the line, a group of us, mostly middle and high schoolers, created our own clique in the forum. We bonded over inside jokes on the message board, swapped awkward “get to know you” posts where we told each other important things like our favorite type of soup, and, for some reason, competed over who loved Nutella the most. The group ebbed and flowed over time, some people faded away (usually to participate more fully in the real world… those losers), and new people joined in. A decade later, the remains of that group consist of the humble editors over at Tilde.

Much of my high school hormonal ridiculousness happened on message boards. I discovered and, tentatively at first, voraciously soon after, began reading tragic fanfic romances about Harry and Draco “getting past their differences.” You know. By having a lot of sex.

It took a very long time to finally meet any of my internet friends in person. It’s hard to run out and meet what most may call “strangers” when you’re young and either living at home or car-less in a dorm. For years we shared pictures, made phone calls, exchanged addresses and sent each other Christmas cards and vaguely obscene fandom references ironed on to polo shirts.

mada mada motherfuckers

I had graduated college and started working a real, adult job by the time I finally visited three of my friends who were hiding out on the East coast. That trip resulted in me catching an ungodly flu and three of us nearly getting arrested for stealing milk. It’s a great story, and if you look hard enough you can still find the legend in a forgotten police blotter.

It’s been nearly a decade since I met my internet friends. I still call them that, by the way. Not because they’re not also real life friends at this point, but because it’s become a term of endearment. They came from the internet, and they made my life so much better.

Sometimes though, I think the most astounding thing about my internet friendships is just how normal they are. (Or as normal as it’s going to get when you regularly force said friends to edit the story you’re submitting to an MTV Teen Wolf Fanfiction contest.)

We grew up together. We gossiped late at night about each other’s first kisses or prom dates, called each other up the first time we got drunk and sent overly weepy texts on our not-so-first-time drunk. We talk just about every day, even with massive time zone differences, and once almost got arrested together. Put that way, we sound about as normal as possible. In another life, we might have all gone to high school together and just been normal (if a bit nerdy) real life.

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Somehow, though, it’s still hard to convince people that internet friends can be just as real as people who met through school or work or happenstance. I sometimes defensively think our friendship is even more real. After all, we sought each other out and worked to keep this friendship up in a way you just don’t when you see someone every day. But even the nerdiest of my non-internet friends still cocks their head and looks a bit bemused when I let slip that I met my oldest friends on the internet, and that’s before I mention it was a Harry Potter forum.

Maybe it’s because we live in a world that demands romantic relationships. Single is an uncertain state — something that most people assume a person will want to rectify. Internet dating is acceptable because you need to find a mate and, heck, it’s the 21st century. Why not let a computer do that work for you? But friendship? That’s something you get by chance. Something we, for some reason, don’t consider a necessity.

Which is fucked up.

My internet BFFs are an absolute imperative in my life. The best advice I can give anyone is to go out and find some of your own. After all, who knows when you’ll need someone to bail you out of jail for stealing the ingredients to a makeshift White Russian?

Guest Post By: Ella West

Ella writes about geeks, feminism, and the experiences of women in fandom at Tildemag.com. When she's not there, she's on twitter @tofuidol, chatting with friends and/or creepy ax murderers she has met on the internet.

Comments on My best friends are from the internet

  1. Oh, honey, I couldn’t agree with you more. I fell into the internet in my 20’s–through a Harry Potter website, myself. Thank you for the article. Found families are amazing and needed.

  2. Yes! I still have a few friends that I met on the internet back in middle school/high school. It’s funny because I forget that’s how I met them, and when I remember, it seems so weird. But it’s not!

  3. I didn’t have internet when I was a teenager, but if it had existed I would have fallen into it headfirst, and it would have been a godsend to a socially awkward freak girl in a backwater small town. (High school graduating class:127, and it was the first year that nobody dropped out.)

    I still exchange christmas cards and sometimes lovely presents with the friend I met in college through a Listserv board about horror movies. I’ve met and befriended people from Norway, ireland, South Africa and other great places through the computer. I skype all the time with friends from a forum I used to be a mod on. We share all the same kinds of life stuff that you share with people you meet in a “normal” way. I’ve even got freelance work through contacts made online.

    Dude, the internet is great, and I think it is especially wonderful for people who might be awkward talkers but good typers, like me. 🙂

  4. Like everyone else here, this is so my adolescence <3 I used to ferret out the internet password when my parents tried to hide it, and learned about deleting browser history, because I felt horrible when I got disconnected from my forum buddies (I'm now also realizing I've been a net hound for longer than I thought, having realized some of those hiding spots where in a house we left when i was young).

    I met several good friends off of ICQ's old chat with a friend feature that set you up with other random people who had it set on. God, I miss those days. I ended up with a really good friend in Finland because of it (who spent half our friendship thinking I was a fellow boy, because apparently my clearly feminine American name is similar to a masculine Finnish name).

    I am SOOO looking forward to the forums starting here! I've had a hard time making new friends since I moved to England and started uni in the fall; I've never thought much about generally always having friends 6-15 years older than me, but damn, there is such a noticeable gap between 'worldly' (one of their words) 25 year old me and my more traditional 18 year old fellow students in my BSc degree, and I desperately miss my old Boston drinking and gaming buddies. Being in a monogamous partnership headed towards engagement also means the old habit of finding people through 'the date didn't click, but you're cool, so let's be friends' and expanding through socials circles that way is out. Sigh. I'm looking forward to chattiness on a homie forum, and am secretly nursing a hope that I'll discover homies nearby for local pub/knitting/gaming/gardening escapades.

        • Hampshire. Bit south and west of you, not far from the coast – about 80 miles. Possibly a bit far for regular pub going! Boo.

          I’m looking forward to the forums too – I have always made friends on t’interwebs and have much more trouble in the flesh. It’s so much easier to say what you want in words on a screen than it is out loud, somehow saying them makes them get all swallowed up, which, given that I write like I speak is daft!

          • My partner’s mum lives down in that area, so have made the occasional trip; is a bit far for a regular occurrence, but possibly not too far for the occasional shenanigans? 😉 If you ever want to chat, I see the email addresses of comments on my blog, as a semi secure way of trading addy’s.

    • I wish I could ask a sensical question to figure out if that’s one of the ones I was on, because it sounds soooo familiar, but at the same time, well, Diagon Alley. Like, “Oh my god, was there those crazy long forum posts over months that were supposed to be one Winter ball, some of them in really good RP, some of them complete Mary Sues?” probably isn’t really going to sort out one forum from the next, I’d guess.

      Whichever one I went to was rich in RP, and I remember my shining moment was having a male Slytherin character who I discovered one fellow forum member thought ‘if that’s not a guy writing that character, I’ll eat my hat’.

      • Nah, this wasn’t role playing at all. It was a discussion forum for grown up Harry Potter fans. There was an attached website that eventually held fics and art, but the forum was the big business.

    • Diagon Alley was too friendly to multiple ships for me. It was The Sugarquill all the way for me! (I was going to guess it was SQ for Ella West, too. It just sounded familiar.)

      While I never got into ‘ship wars, I was a thirteen-year-old Ron/Hermione ‘shipper who thought anyone who didn’t agree was WRONG and STUPID.

      I have since mended my ways, and ship ALL the ‘ships, including ALL the poly combinations thereof. 😀

    • Oh yes!
      I was super into the art section and always wanted people to love my obsessive drawings of ginny. But yes. I read The Draco Trilogy, fangirled Cassandra Claire and printed out fanfiction stories to read in bed like books.
      Sometimes I miss Diagon Alley! What happened to it?

      • Ahhhh, I used to open up the next ten pages of a fanfic on the computer and hop back offline, because we had dial up, and that reduced the risk of my parents calling home and discovering I’d spent all afternoon reading online XD

      • DA closed down due to low traffic and the cost of maintaining the archive. ‘Twas a sad day. I’m still LJ friends with some of the other mods.

  6. Oh my lord, this post takes me back! I was *so* involved with Harry Potter fanfic and forums when I was about 14/15. Probably around the same time as you!

    I never made any lasting friends in that way (too scared of axe-murderers?), but it really helped me feel like I fit in at a time when I was having trouble with that.

  7. Oh my goodness, I love this post so much. This is so true for me .. after I moved, I had such a hard time making friends locally in high school. If I didn’t have my pack of long-time internet friends, I would have been incredibly depressed. There are people I met on the internet when I was eleven that I am STILL close with almost 16 years later. That’s more than I can say for anyone I know offline.

    The hard part is getting people to view them as valid friendships. My mother still insists I have no social life because I don’t go out (I’m not a bar person or anything..), but in reality I have about sixteen or so people I talk to daily, constantly, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. So what if one of my closest friends lives in Ireland?

    And trust me, homegirl using the alias Finnick understands the importance of finding others who can geek out about your favourite books as hard as you do. 😉

  8. So um… was anyone else on Sheroes?

    I always say I grew up on Sheroes. It was a femminist forum for teengagers who liked Tamora Pierce. We came for fangirling and stayed for discussion. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without sheroes. Most of the things I care about now I learnt years ago there.

    Sometimes I go and hover aound still but it is so quiet. Like a new thread a month. We’ve all grown up… but I wish it was still the strong hold it used to be.

  9. okay. here goes. i live in a small town on the Ohio River in Indiana. I have my husband, my cats, my puppy and 1 friend at work. i have always be been terrible at making friends. people, as a rule, at least in this area, find me off-putting. i have never learned how to make friends, moving around a lot as a child, i never really learned. i am super open to making friends. my husband is by far my best friend but he only (lovingly) tolerates my fandoms (Doctor Who, Sherlock). i have yet to find anyone who i can discuss, with the enthusiasm i have in spades, for these things. i try.. i can’t even talk about my vegetarianism in this area without seeing eyes a-rolling. If anyone is interested in chatting (yes I am using this as friend-matchmaking for myself) or knows how I can meet people in my own area who share my interests let me know. These interest include, gaming (Borderlands, L4D), Doctor Who, Sherlock (massive fan of johnlock fanfiction), some tabletop, movies, animals,… drinking… and being all around as goofy as fuck.

  10. This is really well timed considering the thread above this comment, but I met my BFF on Pinterest. I’m in Australia, she lives in Indiana! We talk pretty much daily.
    I’m echoing the rest of the responses with “my life, you just described it, omg”; I still have friends from LJ and living in a city where I know like 6 people, having my extensive online social group (mostly tumblr-based these days!) is just the best. While I would love (LOVE) if my people were nearer to me, I’m pretty used to running my social life through extensive comment discussions and neverending facebook messages 🙂
    I love my internet people!

    • Ah! Someone else with a cross continent best mate! I’m in England and she’s in Australia – and we met via the very first chat feature on OBB (I feel such an empire fangirl now!) maybe in late 07/early 08. We chat most days and I can’t think of anyone who knows more of my secrets or feelings. I’m so glad the world sent her to me as she’s regularly saved my sanity, in the same way my oldest net friend did – I met him when the internet was still young in about 97, and though our lives have both changed massively we still email regularly.

      In my experience, mates formed via the net fall away less because you like each others brains, thoughts and feelings, rather than bonding over shared circumstances. When those change sometimes it turns out you don’t actually have anything left in common to talk about – whereas friendship based on nothing concrete is more about the two people. For me, anyway!

  11. Ohmygosh, this totally describes my adolescence! Hahaha. The main difference being that, for me, it was a roleplaying chatroom dedicated to Les Miserables. 😉 It was a group of 5-10 pre-teen/teenage girls who got together, pretended to be characters from the musical/book, and chatted about our lives. We sent each other letters, chatted all night, and I eventually met two of them in real life later on.

    For a while in college I had a similar group of ladies who I chatted with on the regular in a roleplaying/fan group devoted to dragons. It was awesome.

    I’m not particularly close to any of the girls from either of those groups these days, but they got me through some rough social patches in my life and helped me feel less alone when I didn’t fit in or was going through kind of depressed periods. So important.

    Thank you for making me feel less like a total weirdo. 😉

  13. I met a ton of friends through the Lord of the Rings fandom 10+ years ago, including the friend who ended up introducing me to my husband. I also met one of my best friends who lives in Belgium, and we spent a great weekend together when I lived in London.

    The beauty is I’m still making new friends through blogging and Twitter and other fan communities. The internet is for friends!

  15. How is it so uncannily fitting that I read this post now?

    I first got into making internet friends about ten years ago in the Harry Potter fanfiction…fan…dom. But things never got to extend past just online interaction – I was in my early teens when the first Harry Potter films came out (I remember writing a gazillion haikus to celebrate the release of the fifth book) and it wouldn’t have been appropriate or even possible at the time to meet any of my online friends. And things fell apart rather quickly, as well – it was hard to make friends and write fanfiction with AP classes and college applications, over time.

    Fast forward ten years: I am involved in a few tumblr fandom families. Last summer I got to go to LeakyCon for the first time, and I roomed with three people I became friends with from the internet. One of these friends is coming with me to vacation for a bit next week, as well as the fact that we’re going to be roomies at LeakyCon Portland this summer as well. I am so incredibly excited for both times, it has been FAR too long since we’ve seen each other already!

    What still completely floors me is the camaraderie and affection we all have for each other – especially in our little tumblr family. We love each other, send each other letters in the mail – on Valentine’s day a few friends and I are going to dress up and have a candlelit dinner via Google+ (I’m super excited because it’s going to be so ridiculous). I am just so incredibly glad to be part of such a group, even if some of us have never met before.

    Last – to Ella, specifically: reading this was like reading my autobiography. I think I know the website/forums you were talking about. It’s still on my bucket list to become a Master one day.

  16. I’m so happy I found this post. As a suicidal pre-teen, who was known as the weirdest in the class, being into videogames and all, I loved chatrooms.
    The people who were my age were so lovely and wonderful.I felt less suicidal in just 2 months.
    My mother never liked me going on chat-rooms. She didn’t even know I was suicidal. She made me quit, and I became suicidal again.
    But, everyday, I would sneak back on, and began to smile and laugh everyday.
    I loved my “Interneg Friends” and still talk to them today.

  17. You’re less odd than you think!

    I think I’m older than alot of your readers, for me it was when I moved home after graduate school.

    Today I’m married to one of the nice boys I met online, and half our bridal party was “from the internet”.

    Just last month we went to the wedding of one of my bridesmaids. She had three family pictures taken at the wedding, his side of the family, her side of the family, and the internet side of the family!

  18. The most important question I have about this whole article (which is amazing, by the way) is whether or not you knew about the Cassandra Claire plagiarism debacle/MsScribe scandal and despise them as much as I do.

  19. most of my friends live in my computer. sadly, of all my internet friends, i’ve only met one “IRL”. but these are the people i interact with every day, and despite us never having met face-to-face, they know me better than my own family in some ways. if i ever win the lottery, we’re all meeting up for a nice long vacation somewhere.

    i also met my FI on the internet, and plan to invite all the internet friends to the wedding. i’m pretty sure that only a few (if any) will come because of travel constraints, but they’re all more than welcome if they can make it.

  20. I’M SORRY THIS MIGHT BE A REALLY WEIRD QUESTION BUT I’M WONDERING IF WE’RE FROM THE SAME BOARD. I grew up on the AOL Kids HP message board – we still have a private group on Facebook with 34 members (at least 20 of who still interact on it almost every single day) and we mostly all met on Goblet of Fire. It’s where I got the nickname Pixy which I use to this day. I was an E-Marauder. DO I KNOW YOU, CAUSE THAT WILL BE SO DAMN INTERESTING!!!

  21. Seeing you guys talk so happily is making me even more sad 🙁
    I’m a 13 year old who has stumbled upon this site while searching for material to convince my parents but I’m sure they will NOT get convinced.
    I started having online friends about 1 year ago,when I entered fandoms.
    I live in a town in India,so almost no one gets my references of ALMOST EVERYTHING because well,I’m caught up in book and TV fandoms,and YouTube and English music and stuff which is not understood by my friends bc in India its completely different.
    So when I found online friends,it was just….I was so happy.Finally,people who UNDERSTOOD me.Who got my references and with whom I could talk and rant about stuff I loved.
    Even better than that,I found online friends who live in India and understood how it was bc they too had friends who didn’t get it.
    I had been hiding this from my parents for about a year when they found out.
    I had been hiding this because,well,this is India where parents are much more conservative.
    My brother ratted me out and I got a huge lecture even though I tried to tell them and now I’m not allowed to talk to them anymore.
    They viewed the people I loved the most as not real,virtual and people who had the potential to harm me and cut me off from them,WHICH BROKE ME.
    I said goodbye to them and it was tearful and everyone was crying and they even offered to call and talk to my parents.
    Its been a few weeks and I’m just dying without them.
    I cry and my parents notice that but dismiss it as “social networking withdrawal symptoms”.
    THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND. It feels like part of me has been ripped off and my real friends don’t understand too. It hurts so much even now,thinking about them.
    The memories we had,of discussing videos and music and fanfiction and this and that and just EVERYTHING.
    The jokes we cracked,and promises and plans to somehow meet.
    We shared everything and well, they were my best friends, sisters. One of them is my parabatai and I miss her so much :'(
    The hours we spent talking and teasing and mock fighting.
    The fandoms I introduced them into and the fandoms they introduced me to.
    The puns we cracked,the references,the long rants we had over authors who killed our favorite characters and over badly made movies of books.
    But more than the fandom stuff,the way we understood and loved each other.The way we comforted each other and cursed idiots who had insulted the other. The time I panicked when she had taken up the blade and how I talked my friend out of it.
    The time I cried about how my real BFF had insulted me and they all cursed at her and told me I was perfect.
    Gods,I miss them so,so damn much.
    I envy you all 🙁

    • Saw this online, “They tell you not to talk to people you met on the Internet, because they could be liars and ruin your life. BUT what they didn’t tell you is that they could be some of the best people you will ever meet in your life!’
      And I think you relate to this directly. I hope your family relaxes their restrictions a hit and you are allowed to return to your fandoms.

      I’m 17, and I’ve been going on fanfiction.net since I was 15. I’m glad my parents never banned be, because I’ve made some of my best friends there. One is from Turkey, and even though we suffer from a 6hour time difference, we still find time to talk to each other. The two others are guys from the U.S., and I love them all.
      I know what it’s like to finally find someone who you can geek out with,meant about something that happened in the TV show, rant about your day, or just talk about any and everything. Such is rare, and a blessing. You’ve found that, but it was taken from you. I really do hope you get to talk to them again.

    • This is the reason I hide my internet friends from my parents. I never connect with real life friends and all of my friends are (a) over a five hours drive away, (b) on the other side of the country, and (c) in a different country. With Internet friends you get introduced to a bunch of different cultures! And you make friends that are going through harsh times or could be better at helping you through a harsh time.

    • I understand exactly how you feel! Only I’m on the opposite end of this problem, my friends mom found out and told her I and our other friends must be criminals and told her to never speak to me or any of us again. And it really hurts that all we did was bring their daughter support when they would neglect her almost push her to the point she wanted to take her life because they refuse to love her and they have the nerve to tare us a part and say such terrible things when none are true. It’s frustrating that they suddenly decided to pay attention to her but in such a negative way and pull her away from her friends the only thing keeping her happy. I’m so afraid she might try to end her life if she is forced to be alone again.

      • Arghhhhhh!!!!! That must be so damn annoying! I am annoyed and angry for you both! I hate how a lot of people in society always jump to conclusions that everyone on the Internet is out to harm you. I’ve shared stuff with my online friends that I never shared with the ones I’ve know for years. And they have offered me nothing but support and love.
        I hope her parents wake up and smell the coffee and realize that their daughter having you as a friend is not a threat to her safety orang thing ridiculous like that. Obviously you care for her very much and value her friendship. Friends like you are rare, and I wish you both the best.

  22. Reading your post makes me feel happy that other people out there really understand this however I would like some advice, my best friend is someone I met on the internet, we’re both artist and enjoy drawing nerdy fandom things and such. She’s been with me through some of the toughest moments of my life and she’s the only person I tell somethings too that I could never bare to tell anyone else. Unfortunately we’re minors (just barely but still minors) and even when we become legal adults we aren’t financially able to sustain ourselves without our parents yet, after all we’re just nerdy kids who keep to themseleves stalking around on the internet. and one mistake we made may keep us a part nearly permanently. We decided to draw pictures for each other and mail them. Thats it. I sent her an envelope I colored bright pink and inside I sent her a extremely sparkly manga drawing in shiny gel pens and little emojis along with a little ice cream shaped polymer clay charm I made for her, and a friendship necklace so we could match and feel more together. Her mom got the letter and opened it and told he she was never allowed to talk to me again and forced her to block me on most of her accounts…because I’m from the internet and I must be a criminal who sends sparkly pink letters, butterfly shaped friendship necklaces, and ice cream shaped polymer clay charms…. we have been talking in secret late at night, but the stress of the possibility that we may not be able to speak to each other for years (her mom has already took her phone and blocked me on it) is terrifying and stressful and we have no idea what to do, it seems so hopeless with how society views our friendship we almost want to give up for the sake of each other’s happiness. What should we do?

    • I’m so sorry this is happening to you! I’m not sure how old you are, but is there any way one of your parents could talk to her mom? They could reassure her that you are in fact who you say you are. I find that “stranger danger” fear is the thing that prevents a lot of people from acknowledging any type or relationship (be it a friendship or pen pal type relationship or even a romantic relationship – online dating) formed on the internet seriously. People just don’t think that online stuff is as serious as in real life stuff. I’ve encountered this a lot as I have been on and off dating websites for years. A lot of my friends have been incredibly lucky and met people in real life, but I had to turn to online dating to meet people.

      Perhaps if both sides did a video chat and got to know each other this might help clear up some things? Have her mom, and your mom or dad sit in on the chat and everyone talk to each other. Maybe if your friend agreed to let her mom sit in on some of your chats she would see that you guys are just bonding over shared interests and nothing seedy is happening.

      Hopefully her mom sees that you two are just bonding over shared interests and realizes she is being silly for restricting her daughter from contacting you.

      Oftentimes it’s the lack of understanding about how certain social media stuff works that has parents scared for their kids. If her mom is involved, maybe that will help calm some of her fears. Good luck!

  23. Oh, man. I have so many friends from all over the internet. When I was in my twenties I moderated a vegetarian message board (for 5 or 6 years). We all became so close we decided to meet up, so I traveled from Calgary to New York and Boston to meet with these people. My grandparents were convinced I was about to die (this was back in 2007 or so). When we all met, we had a blast. Everyone was exactly as I thought they would be, same personality, different accents though. We still keep in touch via facebook today.

    I now belong to the Hoop dance community and connect with so many other hoop dancers online. Some I met first in person, some I met online, then finally met in person and others will probably always be internet friends only, but it’s a great way to share our mutual love of plastic circles.

    I think that’s the main beauty of the internet. To connect you with your tribe, people who you jive with, without regard to geography. It makes the world a smaller, friendlier place and that my friends is modern magic!

  24. I’ve belonged to an online group of women since using Offbeat Bride Tribe to plan our weddings 6+ years ago. We formed a group after our weddings, and have been through several website and Facebook iterations. These ladies know me in ways no one “IRL” (in real life) does. I am so thankful for their incredible support and friendship. There were years of having small children at home where the friendship of these women kept me sane. Their advice in matters from relationships to professional life has helped me become the adult woman I am proud to be. THANK YOU, THE BETCHES.

  25. The internet is an amazing place to meet like-minded people! I have been part of some online communities for years. I used to be really big on Yahoo Answers in high school and I remember talking to some people on there.

    It’s nice to talk to people who are interested in the same things as you are. I come from a small town and I just remember feeling like no one liked the same things as me. I have friends in real life, but sometimes I just want to talk to someone and bond over my other interests too! Or even just talk to someone who has been through some similar stuff!

    It’s rough when you are going through something that none of your friends have gone through and they just look at you like you have two heads! When I talk to someone online who gets it or has been there, it makes me feel so much better to know that someone actually gets it!

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