Real life and internet life collide

Today, in about two hours, I'm going to meet my internet writing buddy Kris in person for the very first time.

!!!

How amazing is it that in this day and age I can have friends all over the country that I've never even met? It is so amazingly cool to me that I can meet these people, get to know them, and develop these complex, actually meaningful relationships with them, never having met them in person.

Today, however, all that changes. I get to put a face, a voice, a personality to the name. I get to find out if she has a New York accent, if she is taller or shorter than me, how she takes her tea, what she orders in a restaurant, what she likes to talk about -- other than fanfiction, of course! It's really quite thrilling!

The internet is the great equalizer. I think, in years to come, it will be remembered as one of the world-altering inventions of all time; fire, the wheel, the steam engine, the assembly line; antiseptics; computers; the internet. I try to imagine sometimes what my children will think when I tell them that I can remember a time before computers, a time before the internet. I wonder what my grandchildren will think when I try to explain typewriters and television and radio to them as separate entities from computers and the internet. They probably won't believe me. They won't understand how weird it was, way back then, to meet a friend or a boyfriend online. They won't be able to comprehend that there was a certain stigma attached to internet based/begun relationships. All of that will probably be completely normal for them. Who knows. =)