I don't know any of you IRL, but I'd certainly meet up with the regular commenters here. So maybe, someday that will count as an internet friend. (God, that sounds pathetic.)
I have a friend who's just left Austin for NYC, and he's having a hard time meeting friends. I've explained to him that many of the good friends I've made in Washington have been through blogs. By this point I'm totally unashamed about it: I'm not afraid to (first cyberstalk and then) shoot an e-mail to a blogger who seems sympatico. In fact I'm having drinks later with a blogger whom I've never met but who lives in my neighborhood, writes about art, is funny, &c.
I've made a number of lasting RL friends through web sites and mailing lists. Haven't had any of this hott internet sex all you folds seem to be raking in though.
In some ways, the internet has done wonders for my life. But I think a lot of the energy I used to spend maintaining my long-distance friendships has gotten sucked into commenting here. You guys are great, but did you bake muffins with me at the Hungry Newt? Did you let me cry on your shoulder when the beautiful blond boy got together with Em/ily Bo/tein while I was in France? I think not.
My own fault, though, no doubt. Perhaps if I had gone to the meet-up, some of us would be getting together to make those chocolate chip cookies with the shaved Hershey bars in them this very day.
11- Yeah, I know. I used to send and receive massive emails to one of my college friends, and I think that correspondence eventually turned into my blog. I could (and have) use the internet to promote my old friendships, just have been noticing the opposite effect in that area lately.
it sounds lame, but most of my good friends (in d.c. at least; i go to school in chicago now and am meeting people the regular way) are through the internet. kriston, susan, yglesias, and a bunch of folks i worked with at dcist.com....it's been a great thing. yay.
I'll bite: I think sometimes it promotes an artificial sense of closeness, and some relationships were meant to die, but because everyone is still in e-mail contact, these relationships remain on life support.
I am in contact with about 85% of my small circle of friends from college. 30 years ago, that number would be closer to 10%, I imagine, if we had to write letters and call long distance.
But we're all at different points in our lives now; I don't have a lot in common with a stay-at-home-mom who thinks that all women should be doing this as God Intended. But hey, we e-mail, so we're still friends, just like college. Almost would rather be able to have some friends be Happy College Reunion Friends rather than Current Friends.
Yeah, I found the e-mail as internet thing kind of weird... and the idea that people were divided up into "internet users" and "non-internet users," when really the distinction should be between functional users and raving junkies (I'm looking at all of you). ISTM that non-users are probably poorer and older, so the direct comparison of median network size won't be relevant to that. OTOH, I believe Pew doesn't suck so they probably controlled for that.
I don't really make that many friends when I go out drinking. Usually I got out drinking with the friends I made chatting online. High-fives, Tom and Catherine!
How do you all handle the OL -> RL crossover? I guess it's shyness but I can never do that. I'll take someone up on their invitation if they ask but the idea of suggesting it makes me get all nervous and feel like a total dork. And then, there's always the fear that they'll feel like this. Is there a better answer than "just suck it up"?
In my experience, knowing somene online doesn't immediately translate into being friends with them IRL, but it works as kind of a pre-screening thing, for lack of a better term. It's still meeting a new person, but someone with whom you're more likely to get along with well.
The only other time I've met up with "internet people" was when I was part of an informal Buffy discussion group. From that group, I ended up dating two of them, and making two other serious long-term friends.
That Salon letter wasn't about the problem of meeting someone in real life so much as the problem of not liking someone else's friends. They had met up for weekends before.
The problem is that she doesn't really like her friend's fiance. I know people who haven't liked a real-life friend's husband, but they dealt with it. And who says that all of our friends have to get along? If I want to catch up with a good friend, I might get together with that person alone for drinks or dinner.
matt in 28 gets it pretty right, from my experience. i used to be nervous about meeting people offline but now i'm always thrilled to do so - if i love a person's blog it's pretty much a 100% guarantee i'll like them, too.
I was nervous and felt like a dork at the meetup. I've also been on a ton of Nerve dates, and was totally crippled and awkward in the beginning, but then practice made perfect. In fact, I got absurdly well-practiced at one point, and had perfected a set of behaviors that literally never failed to make the guy interested in a second date. Maybe the same kind of "practice" advice could hold true for platonic stuff. Also, Becks (or for that matter any of the other New Yorkers), I'm getting cheap tickets (nice dollars) for ice skating on Friday night, and I'm going with my boyfriend. I need to look into further ticket availability, but if I find out some are available any of you would be welcome to join us.
How do you all handle the OL -> RL crossover? I guess it's shyness but I can never do that.
It's tough. (Confession: I was too shy to go to the meet-up.) But I think it's getting easier because 'I met my boyfriend on-line' doesn't connote 'All we did was have cybersex because we couldn't figure out how to dress to go out' as much these days.
Plus, the more people that handle the OL/RL crossover, the more it becomes a way of meeting people just like hanging out in a coffee shop or something.
but the idea of suggesting it makes me get all nervous and feel like a total dork Seriously? Dude, you're Becks, inventor of Becks-style blogging. You are probably already famous. We should all be checking Gawker for references to you in the Daily Stalker.
I met with Wolfson before he left for Stanford, and he was basically non-violent. Any encounter with Wolfson, IRL or not, is violent. Recall this basic Wolfson Fact: Ben Wolfson is not violent; Ben Wolfson is violence.
32 - Drat! Tia, that would have been fun. I've never been ice skating before and that is on my list of things that I swore I would, no, must do by the end of this winter. Wouldn't you know that this is the one Friday night in months that I have to work late!
Perhaps someone should form a Chicago-based ice skating splinter group. There's that dinky area at Millenium Park, and I'm sure there are bigger options as well. SKATE OR DIE!!!
F everyone's YI*, I've heard that the new Bryant Park skating rink is totally free, except for skate rental, which you can avoid if you bring your own skates.
* By "everyone", I mean the generally accepted definition, i.e. everyone in New York City.
I went once. I don't think it was free; it was about five dollars plus skate rental, and the lines were long and the rink was packed with, among others, show-offs who were skating way too fast for conditions and knocked me down.
If they set it up again next year, all of you NY ice skaters should totally check out the Bryant Park rink. I took my kids there a bunch of times, and it was awesome -- way better than Wollman.
I'm a little atypical on social internet usage here -- I really don't keep up with RL friends by email at all. If I'm not seeing someone, I'm out of touch. (This isn't exactly true -- I'll make social arrangements by email -- but I don't have any mostly-email relationships.)
I do find it much easier to make new acquaintances over the Internet than in person. It's much easier to get to know people gradually and tentatively online than in real life. I don't have much experience meeting online people in real life, though -- the recent meetup, and a lunch a few years back with some people from a forum where I used to post are my only relevant experiences.
Internet tentativity is more tenable because you don't have to travel. For someone like me, who hates to leave his house under any circumstances, that is a true God-send. That is, the Internet is a God, sent among us for our salvation.
ac, I have found that people who meet me in person are relieved when they find that I'm not nearly as psychologically unbalanced and self-loathing as my blog makes me out to be.
I just filed my Federal and state income taxes in under 30 minutes.
Ah, but how much money do you make and from how many different sources?
OT, I've never met IRL anyone I "know" online, but I would buy any of you a drink. Well, almost any of you. Some of you I would even let buy me a drink.
I had a sort of IL/RL relationship that was long-distance and for the most part carried out in IL. We saw each other, in the time we were together, basically one week every 6 months. We talked a lot, though, and even though it was an open relationship, really cared about each other. However, one of the times I was there, she asked me why I didn't talk as much or as deeply in RL as in IL. I stammered out an answer (something like, we talk all the time in IL, but I only get any when it's RL).
I think IL lends itself to some fallacies IRL (hahaha TLA!!!1!). Namely, shy people are more likely to open up and talk IIL, and this can lead to a lot of discomfort and confusion IRL. Of course, it can also makes it a lot easier for a certain level of comfort, though maybe not a lot, prior to actually meeting IRL.
57-58 doesn't sound that much different from the problems that beset any long distance relationship -- just substitute the phone for the internet, and it's the same.
Adam, I think the one way that it's different is that it is much easier to say all the right things on the internet because there is no such things as a pregnant pause in an IM window; people are expected to be doing something else while chatting, FTMP (hahaha FLA!!!1!).
Well, no, since you mention it. It would be really weird to find out one had two different relationships with the same person, one IRL through their "true" identity and one online through a pseudonym.
find they have a mannerism that would have driven you crazy
Actually, I would pretty well expect this. But this is a projection of my own assumption that I myself would come across as socially unacceptable in some inadvertent and unpreventable way.
ac, in 56 I'm guessing you're talking about someone in New York, and someone who's not pseudonymous, which pretty much narrows it down to me and Osner, which means I'm now officially On Alert.
All you [JD's office] people reading this, I'm on to you.
But what's weird is that you probably didn't imagine them that way. (The other thing is that I tend to imagine everyone as whatever their writing style indicates, so physical age can be a surprise.)
61: I may have told this story already here, but back in 1989 or '90, at MIT, I was once sitting in a computer room with two other acquaintances, all doing separate stuff online. After about an hour, the other two turned around, looked at each other, and said "Is that you?!" Unbeknownst to each other, they had been playing the same MUD pseudonymously, and had gotten into an online conversation that touched on the programmer of the MUD, a mutual friend, which led to them figuring out who the other was. (Nothing interesting ever came of this.)
50: Different strokes. I have a terrible time talking to new people at parties -- I have a firm conviction that no one is likely to be at all interested in a thing I have to say. Online, one can jump in with a tentative comment here and there, ramping up only with positive feedback. Much less nerve-racking. (If I seemed outgoing at the meetup, it was only because I already 'knew' pretty much everyone.)
there is no such things as a pregnant pause in an IM window; people are expected to be doing something else while chatting Au contraire. People get amazingly ticked off when they think they've been neglected in chat.
Being rather young myself, I tend to underestimate the age of people who don't ever mention, e.g., marriage + house + children, Ph.D's, or other similarly indicative things (and then later do mention them).
In general, I find that internet friendships translate pretty well. Personally, I think it has to do with getting to know something through writing: contrary to LB's statement about it being easier to be tentative online, I find the opposite. People tend to be really quite forthcoming online, possibly b/c the normal social inhibitions (like talking about your tits to someone's face) don't apply. It's only a screen, after all.
This can mean a little bit of awkwardness initially, as you figure out how to negotiate the gap between "I kind of feel I know this person well" and those dang social inhibitions. But in general, I've found that if you hang out long enough to get over that, things start going really nicely.
Of course, there *are* people who are impossible to talk to in person. For instance, it's a bit hard to correct someone's spelling when you're talking.
Myself, I rather abhor IM for most things. I have to worry too much about whether I'm being interesting, and other social obligations. I also tend to come across as much more of an ass than I think I really am.
I'm bigger on blog commenting, mailing lists, and occasional private e-mail.
...the normal social inhibitions (like talking about your tits to someone's face) don't apply. It's only a screen, after all.
It's not that there are no social inhibitions, it's that there's a different set. In person, it's important to remember the deodorant. Online, it's important to remember the spell checker. The sets of inhibitions vary from group to group, both in person and online. That's why I let my dog handle all my online relations, and we hire a stand-in for photo ops and personal appearances.
Dr. B, I think that when LB talks about being tentative, she's saying that you don't have to comment/post at all online until you feel comfortable. On the other hand, it woud be pretty weird if you didn't talk at all when you first met someone.
Of course, you're more likely to put more of yourself out there faster online once you jump into the fray.
I don't lurk by the pretzels. I lurk by the beachballs, where I tend to blend in and be less noticable. One day I'll learn to dress better, and lurk among the mannequins
87--You and me alike, LizardBreath. My real-life lurking also seems to involve a lot of spastic twitching. One RL learned behavior that doesn't translate so well in bloggish etiquette is asking the new person about him or herself. Maybe the IL equivalent is googling for data on something the other person is talking about.
I was told recently that I have excellent party etiquette. Not in the "you're way cool" sense at all, just that I can start up conversations with total strangers, and not worry about looking like an idiot--even when I sort of do.
A guy once told me that I do "the Senator's wife thing" very well after he dragged me to a spectacularly boring cocktail party on our first date. (There was no second.)
A couple of years back I got involved with some collaborative music-making type projects on-line with a group of other guitar players who also organise occasional gigs and set quirky monthly recording 'tasks' for members to try and give people the impetus to make and share music.
Several of those people are friends I now meet up with regularly in real life. Having something in common - making music - helps though.
Never done the internet dating thing though - I've never really been single for long enough in the period since I started using the net regularly - and since I am now happily married am not likely to. Other people I know seem to have a good time doing it though... in fact I know a few married couples who met that way.
95: Wow, that is toolish. How many different chickens is he counting? (Unless he was a senator, of course; you do live in DC sometimes.)
It could be a failed quip, of course. You were there, I wasn't.
84, etc.: I definitely feel that. It's easier to sort of sound people out online -- making on-topic comments and all -- and then sort of ease into an acquaintanceship. Whereas IRL it's like, "Wow, you just started talking to me." On blogs there's this comment box thingy, so there's more of an expectation that it's OK to start talking, I think.
97: At my next party, I'm going to draw a circle on the floor and designate it as the "talking area" to see if we can duplicate the comment box effect in real life.
90: In real life, I think I was the one who walked off and stopped talking in our most recent IM conversation. I did not, however, have pasta to boil, but rather coffee to brew.
97 - God, it gets even worse. The cocktail party was a private reception at MoMA right after it reopened that was hosted by the Dalton-ish prep school he had attended. There were only a couple hundred of us there and we had the museum all to ourselves to explore for two hours. Does he take advantage of this? No - he spends the whole time networking and trying to make business contacts and dragging me along with him leaving me to talk with their wives. We didn't even make it into the galleries all night. I so should have ditched him but, unfortunately, my mother pounded her "dance with the one who brought you" Southern ettiquite in me while growing up. Oh, and then he still thought he might get some at the end of the night. Asshole.
"You do the Senator's wife thing very well" was a BOOTY LINE? Can the NY Unfoggetariat come together to give him the beating he so richly deserves?
(Incidentally, what is the phrase I'm looking for when I say 'booty line'? The line you use, not to pick someone up, but to talk someone into bed at the end of the night? Surely there is a phrase for this but I'm at a loss.)
I think I got the party etiquette comment because my friend was impressed with the fact that I went up to a guy who resembled Dr. Dre and got him talking about gardening.
I have no idea who the hell to write around here any more (other than Alameida), since no one has bothered to put any entries up on the sidebar about the new bloggers, but if this and this aren't Unfogged material, I don't know what is. I mean, this is where "The Mineshaft" came from.
Okay, Fl is up there. It's just that I remember this site before it even went public, when it was just a couple of weeks of template fiddling, and the days when wee Ogged was writing me for advice about how to do this "blogging" thing. So I'm just bitter at time changing things. No one asked my permission!
Long ago Unfogged turned mostly into a discussion site. This is great. Just not so much for me.
It's just not what I want to spend most of my day on.
You all have my blessing. I like all the new bloggers. I'm sure you've all been waiting to know, and your life is now changed for the better.
But with Ogged gone, it's possible that my last tie here is snapped. Maybe not. As I said, I like all the folks who are new bloggers. If there's a bunch of interesting posts, I'll be reading them, perhaps. I'm not in a rush to drop the blog from my blogroll, despite the fact that I always desperately look for an excuse to make it smaller. Again, I'm sure the news brings thrills and chills.
It's just like I said: not up for reading hundreds of comments per day. Not most days, anyway. Maybe at times. Oh, well.
I really do love most of you, or like, anyway, nonetheless. Really. Nothing personal about having low interest in what's mostly a highly literate, quite amusing, well-done, smart, IRC channel.
Oh, and, the thing is, and it's illustrative: little interest in who is pwned. I'm sort of boringly into substance. That's the disconnect for me. Again with the oh well.
Gary, I'm sorry if I didn't read your earlier posts as seriously as they were intended. I thought it was more of a tongue-in-cheek venting. Sorry to pile on like that -- it is a big change and I'm sorry if those of us who are coping with humor rubbed any salt in your wounds.
"I thought it was more of a tongue-in-cheek venting."
Mostly boringly seriously. Which is why I've mostly not felt like I fit in much here in the last couple of years. Wrong zeitgeist for me, I'm afraid, more than not. It's me, not you. Different generation, different background, different interests, to a large degree. And I'm not so flexible. I fit in at ObWings, where it's mostly argument about policy and such. I don't fit in where's it's mostly one-liners. It's me, not you.
But as I said, in more than one thread now, I'm not running entirely away yet. It's just that I'm apt to continue to make only occasional appearances in comments, most days, most likely.
Although I'm a pretty consistently crap predictor of my own behavior about that sort of thing, mind.
But I never feel like I have enough time to keep up on news, and magazine articles, and journals, and blogs, of course, anyway. Not to mention the occasional movie, the occasional video game, and gosh, there actually is a world outside my door, and so on and so forth. That's all. It's me, not you.
I do actually have comments at my own blog, though you, the generic "you," do have to spend twelve seconds, once, to register on Blogger, and no, they lie, lie, lie, when it looks like you need to make a Blogger blog; you have have to fill out two fields, one with a name, and one with whatever gibberish you want to put into the "create my blog" field. It will not, in fact, create a blog unless you do a bunch of other stuff you don't have to do. Just two fields. I've timed myself, several times, doing it in twelve seconds. Although you might want to take all of thirty seconds to do it while relaxed.
Just saying. You know where to find me, though I won't know you're there unless you tell me somehow.
Be well, and have fun, and we'll see if you're still interested and here in another four years.
Gary, I can understand that this transition is emotional for you. It is for the rest of us too. If you are still interested in the blog (and there's certainly no reason why you have to be), you'll find that all of us are into substance too, we just mix our substance with cock jokes. We work hard; we play hard. By pwning you, I only meant to invite you to play, but no one says you have to.
On the topic of the post, it occurs to me to clarify that I have made platonic friends online that I had for a while, but I never managed to keep them time put something, like distance, between us. We just didn't have enough shared experience to sustain the friendship.
"If you are still interested in the blog (and there's certainly no reason why you have to be), you'll find that all of us are into substance too, we just mix our substance with cock jokes."
Well, I'm on another cruise-by, just for the record. One shouldn't pay all that much attention to my crankier moments. I'm just growing ever more into my Inner Curmudgeon as I grow so very very old and feeble and feeble-minded. It comes along with the hairs that grow on my ears that so annoy me. I command my hair to grow only where I permit it, and it is disobedient hair, and I find no joy in it. The rebel insurgents will be found and exterminated in their lair (of hair). Freedom will prevail in the end. I'm putting a stop-loss order on all razors.
I don't know any of you IRL, but I'd certainly meet up with the regular commenters here. So maybe, someday that will count as an internet friend. (God, that sounds pathetic.)
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:18 PM
I have a friend who's just left Austin for NYC, and he's having a hard time meeting friends. I've explained to him that many of the good friends I've made in Washington have been through blogs. By this point I'm totally unashamed about it: I'm not afraid to (first cyberstalk and then) shoot an e-mail to a blogger who seems sympatico. In fact I'm having drinks later with a blogger whom I've never met but who lives in my neighborhood, writes about art, is funny, &c.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:21 PM
I've made a number of lasting RL friends through web sites and mailing lists. Haven't had any of this hott internet sex all you folds seem to be raking in though.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:22 PM
God, that sounds pathetic.
I'll be your friend anyway, bg.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:22 PM
Um... am I the only one who scrolls a lot? How do other people get from post to post?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:22 PM
You can ask the DC boys how accommodating I am.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:24 PM
all you folds seem to be raking in
Might be due to your lack of foldy bits, Jeremy.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:24 PM
I agree.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:27 PM
In some ways, the internet has done wonders for my life. But I think a lot of the energy I used to spend maintaining my long-distance friendships has gotten sucked into commenting here. You guys are great, but did you bake muffins with me at the Hungry Newt? Did you let me cry on your shoulder when the beautiful blond boy got together with Em/ily Bo/tein while I was in France? I think not.
My own fault, though, no doubt. Perhaps if I had gone to the meet-up, some of us would be getting together to make those chocolate chip cookies with the shaved Hershey bars in them this very day.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:28 PM
7 -- sigh...
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:28 PM
Keep in mind that the study is counting email as an element of the internet. I think that promotes long term real life friendships.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:30 PM
Keep in mind that the study is counting email as an element of the internet.
Um, was I asleep when "the Internet" was redefined in a way that would exclude e-mail?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:34 PM
How do other people get from post to post?
It's much, much less work once you get the chip implanted in your neck, dude.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:34 PM
11- Yeah, I know. I used to send and receive massive emails to one of my college friends, and I think that correspondence eventually turned into my blog. I could (and have) use the internet to promote my old friendships, just have been noticing the opposite effect in that area lately.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:34 PM
it sounds lame, but most of my good friends (in d.c. at least; i go to school in chicago now and am meeting people the regular way) are through the internet. kriston, susan, yglesias, and a bunch of folks i worked with at dcist.com....it's been a great thing. yay.
Posted by catherine | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:36 PM
12: You've been asleep a very long time, Osner. What year do you think it is?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:37 PM
I'll bite: I think sometimes it promotes an artificial sense of closeness, and some relationships were meant to die, but because everyone is still in e-mail contact, these relationships remain on life support.
I am in contact with about 85% of my small circle of friends from college. 30 years ago, that number would be closer to 10%, I imagine, if we had to write letters and call long distance.
But we're all at different points in our lives now; I don't have a lot in common with a stay-at-home-mom who thinks that all women should be doing this as God Intended. But hey, we e-mail, so we're still friends, just like college. Almost would rather be able to have some friends be Happy College Reunion Friends rather than Current Friends.
Make new friends, but shelve the old,
One's exciting, the other's cold.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:39 PM
Yeah, I found the e-mail as internet thing kind of weird... and the idea that people were divided up into "internet users" and "non-internet users," when really the distinction should be between functional users and raving junkies (I'm looking at all of you). ISTM that non-users are probably poorer and older, so the direct comparison of median network size won't be relevant to that. OTOH, I believe Pew doesn't suck so they probably controlled for that.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:41 PM
Oh yeah, and you don't make as many new friends when you chat online instead of going out and drinking like young people are supposed to.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:42 PM
I don't really make that many friends when I go out drinking. Usually I got out drinking with the friends I made chatting online. High-fives, Tom and Catherine!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:44 PM
Me neither, but I've heard that I would make more friends that way.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:46 PM
Or, go out drinking and then chta olnine.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:47 PM
becks-style!
Posted by catherine | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:48 PM
22 is geniuse.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:51 PM
the friends you make when you go out drinking are the friends you move to escape from later.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 2:58 PM
How do you all handle the OL -> RL crossover? I guess it's shyness but I can never do that. I'll take someone up on their invitation if they ask but the idea of suggesting it makes me get all nervous and feel like a total dork. And then, there's always the fear that they'll feel like this. Is there a better answer than "just suck it up"?
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:00 PM
The last time I met up with an Internet friend, he threatened to fight me.
(Well, the second-to-last time. I met with Wolfson before he left for Stanford, and he was basically non-violent.)
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:02 PM
In my experience, knowing somene online doesn't immediately translate into being friends with them IRL, but it works as kind of a pre-screening thing, for lack of a better term. It's still meeting a new person, but someone with whom you're more likely to get along with well.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:06 PM
The only other time I've met up with "internet people" was when I was part of an informal Buffy discussion group. From that group, I ended up dating two of them, and making two other serious long-term friends.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:07 PM
That Salon letter wasn't about the problem of meeting someone in real life so much as the problem of not liking someone else's friends. They had met up for weekends before.
The problem is that she doesn't really like her friend's fiance. I know people who haven't liked a real-life friend's husband, but they dealt with it. And who says that all of our friends have to get along? If I want to catch up with a good friend, I might get together with that person alone for drinks or dinner.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:11 PM
matt in 28 gets it pretty right, from my experience. i used to be nervous about meeting people offline but now i'm always thrilled to do so - if i love a person's blog it's pretty much a 100% guarantee i'll like them, too.
also, alcohol helps. a lot.
Posted by catherine | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:11 PM
I was nervous and felt like a dork at the meetup. I've also been on a ton of Nerve dates, and was totally crippled and awkward in the beginning, but then practice made perfect. In fact, I got absurdly well-practiced at one point, and had perfected a set of behaviors that literally never failed to make the guy interested in a second date. Maybe the same kind of "practice" advice could hold true for platonic stuff. Also, Becks (or for that matter any of the other New Yorkers), I'm getting cheap tickets (nice dollars) for ice skating on Friday night, and I'm going with my boyfriend. I need to look into further ticket availability, but if I find out some are available any of you would be welcome to join us.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:14 PM
How do you all handle the OL -> RL crossover? I guess it's shyness but I can never do that.
It's tough. (Confession: I was too shy to go to the meet-up.) But I think it's getting easier because 'I met my boyfriend on-line' doesn't connote 'All we did was have cybersex because we couldn't figure out how to dress to go out' as much these days.
Plus, the more people that handle the OL/RL crossover, the more it becomes a way of meeting people just like hanging out in a coffee shop or something.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:14 PM
Oh, right, I totally wasn't thinking about Nerve dates. Used to go on a lot of those at one point.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:16 PM
but the idea of suggesting it makes me get all nervous and feel like a total dork Seriously? Dude, you're Becks, inventor of Becks-style blogging. You are probably already famous. We should all be checking Gawker for references to you in the Daily Stalker.
I met with Wolfson before he left for Stanford, and he was basically non-violent. Any encounter with Wolfson, IRL or not, is violent. Recall this basic Wolfson Fact: Ben Wolfson is not violent; Ben Wolfson is violence.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:18 PM
Matt F, I'm heading over to Bohemian Caverns tonight if you're around. See, meeting people is easy.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:19 PM
32 - Drat! Tia, that would have been fun. I've never been ice skating before and that is on my list of things that I swore I would, no, must do by the end of this winter. Wouldn't you know that this is the one Friday night in months that I have to work late!
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:22 PM
35 - Awww, Tim, that's sweet.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:23 PM
Tia, I'm also, unfortunately, booked on Friday. Ice skating is awesome, though, and I'm sorry I can't go.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:25 PM
Belgian Beer Happy Hour? Shweet, I'm there. I can get there around 8 or 8:30.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:28 PM
Confession: I did, in fact, attend a seminar for work instead of going to the meet-up, but I might have fought to reschedule it were I less shy.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:28 PM
Perhaps someone should form a Chicago-based ice skating splinter group. There's that dinky area at Millenium Park, and I'm sure there are bigger options as well. SKATE OR DIE!!!
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:28 PM
F everyone's YI*, I've heard that the new Bryant Park skating rink is totally free, except for skate rental, which you can avoid if you bring your own skates.
* By "everyone", I mean the generally accepted definition, i.e. everyone in New York City.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:30 PM
Christ, ogged is gone for one day and we've already gheyed out to the point where we're talking about ice skating.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:33 PM
I went once. I don't think it was free; it was about five dollars plus skate rental, and the lines were long and the rink was packed with, among others, show-offs who were skating way too fast for conditions and knocked me down.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:34 PM
OT, but listen, bitchez, I just filed my Federal and state income taxes in under 30 minutes.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:35 PM
If they set it up again next year, all of you NY ice skaters should totally check out the Bryant Park rink. I took my kids there a bunch of times, and it was awesome -- way better than Wollman.
I'm a little atypical on social internet usage here -- I really don't keep up with RL friends by email at all. If I'm not seeing someone, I'm out of touch. (This isn't exactly true -- I'll make social arrangements by email -- but I don't have any mostly-email relationships.)
I do find it much easier to make new acquaintances over the Internet than in person. It's much easier to get to know people gradually and tentatively online than in real life. I don't have much experience meeting online people in real life, though -- the recent meetup, and a lunch a few years back with some people from a forum where I used to post are my only relevant experiences.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:35 PM
Huh, LB had a better experience. To clarify, by "long" I mean we waited about an hour outside to skate.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:38 PM
43, 45: Bryant Park is shut down now -- they disassembled the rink for the Feb. fashion shows.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:39 PM
It's much easier to get to know people gradually and tentatively online than in real life.
Really? I feel a great shyness in meeting people through my (somewhat confessional) writing that I don't feel just chatting with people at a party.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:42 PM
Internet tentativity is more tenable because you don't have to travel. For someone like me, who hates to leave his house under any circumstances, that is a true God-send. That is, the Internet is a God, sent among us for our salvation.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:43 PM
35: So, if I happen to be on Stanford's campus during the next few months, I should just look for violence?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:46 PM
ac, I have found that people who meet me in person are relieved when they find that I'm not nearly as psychologically unbalanced and self-loathing as my blog makes me out to be.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:47 PM
I just filed my Federal and state income taxes in under 30 minutes.
Ah, but how much money do you make and from how many different sources?
OT, I've never met IRL anyone I "know" online, but I would buy any of you a drink. Well, almost any of you. Some of you I would even let buy me a drink.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:49 PM
OT, I've never met IRL anyone I "know" online
Are you sure about that? With pseudonymity and all, it's possible for people to have met each other IRL without knowing it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 3:52 PM
I know someone who works with one of you.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:04 PM
I had a sort of IL/RL relationship that was long-distance and for the most part carried out in IL. We saw each other, in the time we were together, basically one week every 6 months. We talked a lot, though, and even though it was an open relationship, really cared about each other. However, one of the times I was there, she asked me why I didn't talk as much or as deeply in RL as in IL. I stammered out an answer (something like, we talk all the time in IL, but I only get any when it's RL).
I think IL lends itself to some fallacies IRL (hahaha TLA!!!1!). Namely, shy people are more likely to open up and talk IIL, and this can lead to a lot of discomfort and confusion IRL. Of course, it can also makes it a lot easier for a certain level of comfort, though maybe not a lot, prior to actually meeting IRL.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:06 PM
57... this relationship was in high school.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:06 PM
57-58 doesn't sound that much different from the problems that beset any long distance relationship -- just substitute the phone for the internet, and it's the same.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:11 PM
Adam, I think the one way that it's different is that it is much easier to say all the right things on the internet because there is no such things as a pregnant pause in an IM window; people are expected to be doing something else while chatting, FTMP (hahaha FLA!!!1!).
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:15 PM
Are you sure about that?
Well, no, since you mention it. It would be really weird to find out one had two different relationships with the same person, one IRL through their "true" identity and one online through a pseudonym.
Dude, you're blowing my mind.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:16 PM
It's also weird to meet someone from OL IRL and find they have a mannerism that would have driven you crazy were you not already on friendly terms.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:19 PM
there is no such things as a pregnant pause in an IM window
That is definitely not true. I've gotten pissed at people for being insufficiently vocal while chatting, if it's about an important matter.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:20 PM
I know someone who works with one of you.
One of who? The entire hive mind here? Or one of us chickens in this comment column, more or less now?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:20 PM
63: But I meant when neither of you have anything to say. I should have been more specific.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:22 PM
find they have a mannerism that would have driven you crazy
Actually, I would pretty well expect this. But this is a projection of my own assumption that I myself would come across as socially unacceptable in some inadvertent and unpreventable way.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:24 PM
64- The larger set.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:24 PM
ac, in 56 I'm guessing you're talking about someone in New York, and someone who's not pseudonymous, which pretty much narrows it down to me and Osner, which means I'm now officially On Alert.
All you [JD's office] people reading this, I'm on to you.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:25 PM
But what's weird is that you probably didn't imagine them that way. (The other thing is that I tend to imagine everyone as whatever their writing style indicates, so physical age can be a surprise.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:25 PM
I was shocked to find that Michael is a trannie, for one thing.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:27 PM
physical age can be a surprise
Have you ever met anyone who writes younger than they are, or only the other way around?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:28 PM
61: I may have told this story already here, but back in 1989 or '90, at MIT, I was once sitting in a computer room with two other acquaintances, all doing separate stuff online. After about an hour, the other two turned around, looked at each other, and said "Is that you?!" Unbeknownst to each other, they had been playing the same MUD pseudonymously, and had gotten into an online conversation that touched on the programmer of the MUD, a mutual friend, which led to them figuring out who the other was. (Nothing interesting ever came of this.)
50: Different strokes. I have a terrible time talking to new people at parties -- I have a firm conviction that no one is likely to be at all interested in a thing I have to say. Online, one can jump in with a tentative comment here and there, ramping up only with positive feedback. Much less nerve-racking. (If I seemed outgoing at the meetup, it was only because I already 'knew' pretty much everyone.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:33 PM
Yeah, watch out, Joe.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:36 PM
there is no such things as a pregnant pause in an IM window; people are expected to be doing something else while chatting Au contraire. People get amazingly ticked off when they think they've been neglected in chat.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:37 PM
74 gets it exactly right.
73 is making me sweat.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:38 PM
Now that it looks like ac has a network of spies, is it going to turn out that TIA is an acronym?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:39 PM
Being rather young myself, I tend to underestimate the age of people who don't ever mention, e.g., marriage + house + children, Ph.D's, or other similarly indicative things (and then later do mention them).
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:40 PM
Kidding. I'm pretty sure the person knows we have this connection.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:41 PM
In general, I find that internet friendships translate pretty well. Personally, I think it has to do with getting to know something through writing: contrary to LB's statement about it being easier to be tentative online, I find the opposite. People tend to be really quite forthcoming online, possibly b/c the normal social inhibitions (like talking about your tits to someone's face) don't apply. It's only a screen, after all.
This can mean a little bit of awkwardness initially, as you figure out how to negotiate the gap between "I kind of feel I know this person well" and those dang social inhibitions. But in general, I've found that if you hang out long enough to get over that, things start going really nicely.
Of course, there *are* people who are impossible to talk to in person. For instance, it's a bit hard to correct someone's spelling when you're talking.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:41 PM
Myself, I rather abhor IM for most things. I have to worry too much about whether I'm being interesting, and other social obligations. I also tend to come across as much more of an ass than I think I really am.
I'm bigger on blog commenting, mailing lists, and occasional private e-mail.
Real life? What real life?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:43 PM
I have met precisely one person through the internet. Did go swimmingly, though.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:50 PM
74: yes
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:50 PM
...the normal social inhibitions (like talking about your tits to someone's face) don't apply. It's only a screen, after all.
It's not that there are no social inhibitions, it's that there's a different set. In person, it's important to remember the deodorant. Online, it's important to remember the spell checker. The sets of inhibitions vary from group to group, both in person and online. That's why I let my dog handle all my online relations, and we hire a stand-in for photo ops and personal appearances.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:52 PM
Dr. B, I think that when LB talks about being tentative, she's saying that you don't have to comment/post at all online until you feel comfortable. On the other hand, it woud be pretty weird if you didn't talk at all when you first met someone.
Of course, you're more likely to put more of yourself out there faster online once you jump into the fray.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:52 PM
Yes, lurking in person can be seen as meriting a visit from people in uniform.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:54 PM
#84, this is true.
#83, wait--deodorant?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 4:58 PM
84: Exactly. I didn't say anything here until I was fairly sure that this was the sort of place that people would find me entertaining.
85: Generally, I lurk by the pretzels. It looks pathetic, perhaps, but not so much scary.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:01 PM
deodorant s/b pants.
I don't lurk by the pretzels. I lurk by the beachballs, where I tend to blend in and be less noticable. One day I'll learn to dress better, and lurk among the mannequins
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:03 PM
Hey, did you forget about that online conversation we were having earlier, Bitch? Did you have some very important pasta to boil or WHAT?! GOD!!!
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:03 PM
Adam, I am going home now, if that's perfectly okay with you.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:06 PM
87--You and me alike, LizardBreath. My real-life lurking also seems to involve a lot of spastic twitching. One RL learned behavior that doesn't translate so well in bloggish etiquette is asking the new person about him or herself. Maybe the IL equivalent is googling for data on something the other person is talking about.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:07 PM
Ok, yes. Lurking by food = always good.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:08 PM
I have seen the moment of my lurking flicker,
And I have seen the many in jokes make me laugh and snicker,
And in short, I was no longer afraid.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:10 PM
I was told recently that I have excellent party etiquette. Not in the "you're way cool" sense at all, just that I can start up conversations with total strangers, and not worry about looking like an idiot--even when I sort of do.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:11 PM
A guy once told me that I do "the Senator's wife thing" very well after he dragged me to a spectacularly boring cocktail party on our first date. (There was no second.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:34 PM
A couple of years back I got involved with some collaborative music-making type projects on-line with a group of other guitar players who also organise occasional gigs and set quirky monthly recording 'tasks' for members to try and give people the impetus to make and share music.
Several of those people are friends I now meet up with regularly in real life. Having something in common - making music - helps though.
Never done the internet dating thing though - I've never really been single for long enough in the period since I started using the net regularly - and since I am now happily married am not likely to. Other people I know seem to have a good time doing it though... in fact I know a few married couples who met that way.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:46 PM
95: Wow, that is toolish. How many different chickens is he counting? (Unless he was a senator, of course; you do live in DC sometimes.)
It could be a failed quip, of course. You were there, I wasn't.
84, etc.: I definitely feel that. It's easier to sort of sound people out online -- making on-topic comments and all -- and then sort of ease into an acquaintanceship. Whereas IRL it's like, "Wow, you just started talking to me." On blogs there's this comment box thingy, so there's more of an expectation that it's OK to start talking, I think.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:51 PM
97: At my next party, I'm going to draw a circle on the floor and designate it as the "talking area" to see if we can duplicate the comment box effect in real life.
90: In real life, I think I was the one who walked off and stopped talking in our most recent IM conversation. I did not, however, have pasta to boil, but rather coffee to brew.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 5:56 PM
97 - God, it gets even worse. The cocktail party was a private reception at MoMA right after it reopened that was hosted by the Dalton-ish prep school he had attended. There were only a couple hundred of us there and we had the museum all to ourselves to explore for two hours. Does he take advantage of this? No - he spends the whole time networking and trying to make business contacts and dragging me along with him leaving me to talk with their wives. We didn't even make it into the galleries all night. I so should have ditched him but, unfortunately, my mother pounded her "dance with the one who brought you" Southern ettiquite in me while growing up. Oh, and then he still thought he might get some at the end of the night. Asshole.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:05 PM
"You do the Senator's wife thing very well" was a BOOTY LINE? Can the NY Unfoggetariat come together to give him the beating he so richly deserves?
(Incidentally, what is the phrase I'm looking for when I say 'booty line'? The line you use, not to pick someone up, but to talk someone into bed at the end of the night? Surely there is a phrase for this but I'm at a loss.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:11 PM
example: "I think Scrooge McDuck is sexy."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:13 PM
I think I got the party etiquette comment because my friend was impressed with the fact that I went up to a guy who resembled Dr. Dre and got him talking about gardening.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:14 PM
100- I don't know. The closer?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:29 PM
The opener?
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:34 PM
I have no idea who the hell to write around here any more (other than Alameida), since no one has bothered to put any entries up on the sidebar about the new bloggers, but if this and this aren't Unfogged material, I don't know what is. I mean, this is where "The Mineshaft" came from.
Okay, Fl is up there. It's just that I remember this site before it even went public, when it was just a couple of weeks of template fiddling, and the days when wee Ogged was writing me for advice about how to do this "blogging" thing. So I'm just bitter at time changing things. No one asked my permission!
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:38 PM
eb: you could email, but looking for the violence will work too.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:45 PM
#98/90: That's okay Adam. I pay so little attention to you that I hadn't even noticed you'd left.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:49 PM
I am now convinced that ac knows someone I work with, and that people I work with know I am text.
all is lost.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 6:55 PM
Gary, if you read our blog, you would know we already discussed that.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 7:05 PM
Zzzzzzing!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 7:10 PM
I think that is a canonical pwning.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 8:00 PM
Never said I was keeping up here these days.
Long ago Unfogged turned mostly into a discussion site. This is great. Just not so much for me.
It's just not what I want to spend most of my day on.
You all have my blessing. I like all the new bloggers. I'm sure you've all been waiting to know, and your life is now changed for the better.
But with Ogged gone, it's possible that my last tie here is snapped. Maybe not. As I said, I like all the folks who are new bloggers. If there's a bunch of interesting posts, I'll be reading them, perhaps. I'm not in a rush to drop the blog from my blogroll, despite the fact that I always desperately look for an excuse to make it smaller. Again, I'm sure the news brings thrills and chills.
It's just like I said: not up for reading hundreds of comments per day. Not most days, anyway. Maybe at times. Oh, well.
I really do love most of you, or like, anyway, nonetheless. Really. Nothing personal about having low interest in what's mostly a highly literate, quite amusing, well-done, smart, IRC channel.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 9:25 PM
Oh, and, the thing is, and it's illustrative: little interest in who is pwned. I'm sort of boringly into substance. That's the disconnect for me. Again with the oh well.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 9:27 PM
Gary, I'm sorry if I didn't read your earlier posts as seriously as they were intended. I thought it was more of a tongue-in-cheek venting. Sorry to pile on like that -- it is a big change and I'm sorry if those of us who are coping with humor rubbed any salt in your wounds.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 9:40 PM
"I thought it was more of a tongue-in-cheek venting."
Mostly boringly seriously. Which is why I've mostly not felt like I fit in much here in the last couple of years. Wrong zeitgeist for me, I'm afraid, more than not. It's me, not you. Different generation, different background, different interests, to a large degree. And I'm not so flexible. I fit in at ObWings, where it's mostly argument about policy and such. I don't fit in where's it's mostly one-liners. It's me, not you.
But as I said, in more than one thread now, I'm not running entirely away yet. It's just that I'm apt to continue to make only occasional appearances in comments, most days, most likely.
Although I'm a pretty consistently crap predictor of my own behavior about that sort of thing, mind.
But I never feel like I have enough time to keep up on news, and magazine articles, and journals, and blogs, of course, anyway. Not to mention the occasional movie, the occasional video game, and gosh, there actually is a world outside my door, and so on and so forth. That's all. It's me, not you.
I do actually have comments at my own blog, though you, the generic "you," do have to spend twelve seconds, once, to register on Blogger, and no, they lie, lie, lie, when it looks like you need to make a Blogger blog; you have have to fill out two fields, one with a name, and one with whatever gibberish you want to put into the "create my blog" field. It will not, in fact, create a blog unless you do a bunch of other stuff you don't have to do. Just two fields. I've timed myself, several times, doing it in twelve seconds. Although you might want to take all of thirty seconds to do it while relaxed.
Just saying. You know where to find me, though I won't know you're there unless you tell me somehow.
Be well, and have fun, and we'll see if you're still interested and here in another four years.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 01-31-06 9:53 PM
Gary, I can understand that this transition is emotional for you. It is for the rest of us too. If you are still interested in the blog (and there's certainly no reason why you have to be), you'll find that all of us are into substance too, we just mix our substance with cock jokes. We work hard; we play hard. By pwning you, I only meant to invite you to play, but no one says you have to.
On the topic of the post, it occurs to me to clarify that I have made platonic friends online that I had for a while, but I never managed to keep them time put something, like distance, between us. We just didn't have enough shared experience to sustain the friendship.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02- 1-06 8:22 AM
"If you are still interested in the blog (and there's certainly no reason why you have to be), you'll find that all of us are into substance too, we just mix our substance with cock jokes."
Well, I'm on another cruise-by, just for the record. One shouldn't pay all that much attention to my crankier moments. I'm just growing ever more into my Inner Curmudgeon as I grow so very very old and feeble and feeble-minded. It comes along with the hairs that grow on my ears that so annoy me. I command my hair to grow only where I permit it, and it is disobedient hair, and I find no joy in it. The rebel insurgents will be found and exterminated in their lair (of hair). Freedom will prevail in the end. I'm putting a stop-loss order on all razors.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02- 1-06 2:45 PM