My Online Family

I want to fill this space up with words that make an exciting story, but honestly, I don't have much of an exciting story to tell right now. My life has been pretty mundane these past few weeks. I don't mind it being mundane. Exciting usually means that I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off and praying for some time to myself where I have nothing to do.

Instead, I am going to talk about this phenomena that I am starting to see evolve around me. I think my online friends are starting to out number the friends that I have in real life. There was a time when I would have thought that something was wrong with me if this had been the case. But now, I don't really feel like that any more. My friends in real life (God bless them, I love them dearly) don't really understand any of my hobbies. Any of them. In fact, a lot of my friends discourage me. They don't realize what they are doing, but it doesn't make it any less disheartening. I am told that I'm wasting my time, or I don't have enough time to be indulging in things like that. The best one has to be that I need to get out more. But the people that I have met through writing and gaming seem to get it. I don't have to explain myself, because they already understand. Not only that, but they are involved in the same things.

There was a time when I wasn't very open to people who I couldn't attach a face to or were only words on screen or disembodied voice. I had to see them face to face. Somehow that was supposed to make the relationship that I had with that person "real". Now, those walls are slowly starting to crumble away. That whole mantra that used to be solidified in my brain that you couldn't be actual friends with people that you couldn't see is starting to fall apart. And the number of people that I'm getting acquainted with just keeps growing. I even met up with a few of them at PAX East.

On top of that, these people are really awesome. They are nice, they are cool, they are fun. And sure, most of interactions I have with them are just typed out words in chats, forums and on my Twitter feed, but still. It's more interaction than I have with people who I see face to face. The ones who don't talk, call or text because they are too busy.

But for some reason I have this strange concern. There is always this worry that it will all go away in a blink. One day I'm going to wake up and all these cool people I've met are just going to be gone. Or worse, I'm going to excluded from the cool kids table for some reason. I don't know why I think that, I just do. It's like I can't just enjoy what's happening as it happens. I know, I'm weird.

I don't know how I found all these cool people or why they let me tag along with them. But I'm enjoying myself. I like folks who have some of the same interests as me and don't make me feel like some leper for having them.