My Weird Little Introverted Internet Life

I don’t think y’all know me. Really know me.

Like. Maybe you know a little from what I post online. A traveling here. A wandering there.

But not actually. Y’all don’t know all of it. Not even the half of it.

I just drove four hours home after spending the weekend with two people I originally met from the Internet. I first met the one online eight years ago while I lived in California and he visited from the opposite side of the country; the other guy, I initially met online and then here in North Carolina last year, first as a follower of YOB and then as a supporter and then as a contributor but now more as a friend, above all else.

This weekend, the three of us recorded a podcast together that hundreds of folks around the world will listen to by the end of the week (our top-4 listenerships are America, Canada, the UK, and the Philippines!).

I then drove four hours back to the Blue Ridge to grab dinner with a new site follower and his friend from a few hours away — another person from the Internet who has read our communal blog and listens to our podcast.

I ate tacos as I listened to these guys’ intersecting stories. I had a sort of out-of-body experience somewhere between the lamb and spicy buffalo chicken.

Like, this is actually my life now. Meeting folks from the Internet wherever I go. Near and far and down the street.

I mean, I’ve lived this life for years now. I’m not oblivious to it.

I’m just feeling it really strongly today. Realizing I hardly translate my weird little introverted Internet life to others. How can I ever describe this as my “normal”?

It’s happened dozens upon dozens of times now, meeting a reader of YOB or my book or both.

Not to puff myself up — look at all my readers! — but it’s bizarre, right? This life, my life?

My life is so weird.

I scroll through my friends list on Facebook from time to time, and this percentage of friends made from the Internet rises with each new assessment.

High school? College? Coworkers from eleven different part- and full-time jobs? That percentage of friendships goes down every year.

I’m realizing it’s not totally uncommon these days. Internet friendships. Other people enjoy them, too. Before I wandered into the wonderful web of Faith & Sexuality, I tested the Internet friendship waters in online Survivor games. Made several friendships on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, it was) while voting people out (and mostly being voted out) before diving into deeper friendship waters.

Now I’m driving and flying all over the country and world (if we can count Canada as “the world”) to meet readers and readers-turned-friends for coffee and tacos. In the last month alone, I’ve driven three thousand miles around six states, meeting all these “Internet friends” along the way. Flying to another one to meet several more in a couple days.

Sometimes I crash on their couch for a weekend, and sometimes we part ways after an hour in a diner. Sometimes we stay in touch, sometimes we don’t.

Sometimes life circles back years later.

And sometimes. Just sometimes. These people become my dearest friends. Friends I’d die for. Brothers in a very real familial sense of the word.

This very month, I celebrate ten years of such Internet relationships and realize there’s no rhyme or reason why I’ve become close friends with some and not so much with others. Certainly I’ve pined after many-a-Facebook-profile only for the friendship not to be reciprocated or for it to fizzle out after a few months or minutes.

I guess this fizzling happens in the “real world,” too. Friends who don’t show up anymore, don’t stick around. Or maybe we don’t show up or stick around for them. I know I’m guilty of the latter.

In any case. I’m grateful for the friends who have shown up. Friends who have stuck. Friends I don’t deserve. Friends who found me. Friends who found each other.

I’m just feeling thankful tonight.

Feeling super weird, too.

But mostly grateful.

Thanks, Internet.