Virtual people, real friends

people are increasingly open to turning "online" friends into people they'd deign to call real life friends.

The friends I've made online – from blogging in particular, be they other bloggers or commenters on this or my own site – are the best friends I now have

And yet, when I say this to people, many times they'll look at me like I'm a social failure

the internet is full of lively minded, like-minded engaging people – for the first time in history we're lucky enough to choose friends not by location or luck

The friends I have now might be spread wide, geographically, but I'm closer to them than anyone I went to school with, by about a million miles

There's no trying to slowly work out whether you think similarly or have the same kinds of life experience

though it's treated with an air of disdain. It's the sense of shock that surprises me, as if people on the internet were not "real" at all

by making friends online, you're simply speeding through the whole process