So this is something I sent my mom after we went walking/talking at Birdseye State Forest. She asked if I found that my internet friends were as they acted online when I met them in person, more or less.
Then Dad sort of derailed the whole thing talking about being true to your genuine self or something and so… e-mail happened.
We got a little derailed yesterday on one conversation, but I was thinking about internet friends.
I suppose, way back to the first one I met in person (Cap/Sarah), I wasn’t taken aback at all by the person I met, because by the time I met them in person, we’d already had hours and hours of conversation and interactions online. So it’s… like if you went and encountered Beth on a chat board online for the first time after knowing her all this time; she’d still be the same person.
By contrast, many of the friends I had before my internet people, I first met roleplaying – so literally pretending to be someone else. In that situation, it does take a little bit longer to figure out who someone actually is underneath all the roles.