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?