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| Friendships come in different packages;online, offline, all lines |
We meet our friends in all sorts of ways and I love to read or hear about how others met their cherished friends or spouses. Why? Because each story is unique; in a quirky sorta special way. There usually is humor somewhere or an exchange that precipitates more exchanges and then a friendship builds... With the explosion of the internet, social media and online dating sites, we have all become exposed to other ways to connect with people and make friends and so an online connection can create an opportunity for a lifelong friendship.
When I read MamaKat's assignment for this week's Writers Workshop, I was nicely surprised to see the question about meeting online friends offline. It made me smile and I knew I would write about it on both of my blogs. Sure, we all read terrible tales of people meeting online strangers offline to disastrous outcomes and I am not advocating this as a trend or even a habit. We must still be attentive to our instincts and our gut feelings about the people we connect with online.
This week's Prompt: That one time you met your online friend in real life (was it everything you thought it would be?)
So far, the few friends I've made online have been through membership in a community; Triiibes, Problogger 31DBBB group and such. Personally, I would not meet strangers without careful review and, in any case, my advice is to keep it social in a public space.
I met Bronwyn on Seth Godin's Triiibes (a private Ning group with 10,000 members, password-protected, non-anonymous where folk gather to discuss/encourage/connect with likeminded souls) and we connected immediately; we shared something in common - we were transplanted from our place of birth to live/work in entirely new countries... Read the rest below.
On yet another note, before you dive into my online/offline friendship story below, I was the featured blogger via my Wordpress blog - Mirth and Motivation - on SITSGirls on Tuesday; I wrote a piece on 10 Things we can do before sitting down for Thanksgiving Dinner and had a blast responding to all the SITStahs who stopped by to say hello. Thank you all for your comment love and support. If you missed it, do stop by my other blog and check out the tips; very handy as we approach the holiday season... Read on & Thank you!
