Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Imaginary friends

Did you have any when you were a child? I didn’t, not really, although I did like to sit at my bedroom window on the second floor and look across the driveway to the abandoned house next door. I populated each window with girls I could play with. This was when I was five or six years old.

Today, I have a lot of virtual friends which some might consider to be the same thing as imaginary. I disagree; two of my best friends are people I met online gaming. I’ve known John and Angie since 2000. Kent and I stayed at John’s house and got to meet his wife the first night of our honeymoon (John and Brenda lived in Calgary then and we honeymooned at Lake Louise). About a month later, we went to Angie’s wedding. They’ve been friends with me through eleven years of good and bad times and are no less important to me than people I met in more conventional ways. Edited to add that those were the first times we'd met John and Angie face to face.

Tomorrow I’m having lunch with another virtual friend, one I met through Facebook. We figured out that she works very near where I live in Boston and she’s originally from the Kansas City area. I'm looking forward to meeting her face to face as well.

What about you? Do you also have virtual friendships that are as important to you as your face to face friendships?

5 comments:

Jeanne said...

Well, yeah! I will look forward to hearing about your meeting with the other Boston resident! Although you and I once knew each other in real life, I don't think we knew each other as well as we do now as more imaginary friends.

edj3 said...

I agree, Jeanne. You and I don't really fit either category. As I told someone in an email, we were acquaintances only, which was my loss.

I love having you as a friend now.

Joybells said...

I'm wickedass excited about our lunch tomorrow! I can see the headline in tomorrow's paper: "Midwesterners Unite to Save Boston from Itself!"

My brothers were my imaginary friends as a kid, since I spent most of my childhood imagining that they were my friends, despite all evidence to the contrary.

edj3 said...

Joy, we can only save them if we bring casseroles. Just to be certain, we should probably bring a green bean casserole AND a chicken, broccoli and rice casserole.

FreshHell said...

Very exciting! I'm jealous. I wish I could be there. I have real friends who I keep up with in the imaginary world, imaginary friends I have yet to meet (like you), and imaginary friends who I've met in real life. Thru my blog and FB. One day, I'd like to know them all in reality. They are often more important to me, on a daily basis, than some real folks I share my life with.