if you’re like me, you probably have quite a few online aquaintances that you feel relatively close to. you read each other’s blogs, you might chat over some IM client, and in general you share a common experience with each other through your internet surfing habits. eventually you come to think of some of these people as “friends” even though you may not have met IRL (or in real life for the acronymically challenged). but then when you get a chance to meet some of these “friends” through a vacation, either yours or theirs, it’s only natural to want to meet the person behind the pixels. or so i thought anyway. obviously there is something about meeting someone IRL that you can’t get over the non-human interaction of the internet, no matter how “close” you think you might be to the other person.

then there is the factor of not really knowing the person on the other end and having stories of online stalkers and predators spread by a tabloid-esque media and it’s no wonder that everyone is cautious about having their online aquaintances show up on their doorstep (so to speak). lately i find myself in such a position of being practically on the doorsteps of some people i thought i was close to, but receiving almost nothing in response to my queries to meet somewhere. i know i can’t ask someone i hardly know to drop their lives in order to meet me out somewhere. but i thought i could read people pretty well, and maybe i just do better with the old-fashioned method of face to face. but i also don’t just make friends with anyone, so it makes it very hard for me to take when someone i think of as a friend, even in the ever elusive medium of the internet, seems to stop wanting to talk to me for no apparent reason and won’t explain why. but life goes on as usual. if we constantly dwell on these things then we make ourselves incredibly bitter and jaded, and that’s not the way i like to live so i choose to move on and get on with my life.