There are a lot of uncomfortable stories associated with meeting people in real life, particularly after you’ve formed a long standing impression of them over the internet. We’ve all heard of the underwhelming impressions of meeting potential partners from dating agencies, and the horrors of internet pedophiles ‘grooming’ their victims from the innocuous one-sided mirror of a web browser.
It was thus a pleasant surprise for me to meet a fellow writer, blogger (is that a word?) and ‘80s Space Combat Simulator Fan‘ and find that he was quite as erudite and charming in the real world as he is in the virtual one.
A fortuituous turn of events allowed us both to meet up in London this afternoon after a number of years of exchanging comments on internet bulletin boards. We had time to share a pint and chat about writing, space games and old computers. We clearly had much in common and could probably have chatted for hours, but our conversation was cut short by the inevitable passage of time. We both had trains to catch, so half an hour was all we had.
Despite this we covered a fair bit of ground, and hopefully laid the foundations for future meetings. I’m really fortunate to have meet a lot of people both in person and across the internet and it’s great to put a face to a userid and an avatar. I never cease to be fascinated by what other people do and what they’re interested in.
I’ve always subscribed to the view that I’ll trust people until I have a reason not to, and as such have a number of rewarding friendships with people I’d never have known if I’d adopted a more cautious outlook. I hope this marks the start of another one. Great to meet you, John!
“I’ve always subscribed to the view that I’ll trust people until I have a reason not to”
Me too – generally most people are fundamentally decent, and the world would be a better place if only more people recognized that !!!
As you said, we could have chatted for hours – the 30 minutes we had were gone in an enjoyable flash. Thank-you for your kind words – I promise to be equally eloquent and praiseworthy when I reciprocate with a blog of my own! It was very good indeed to hang some flesh on the virtual bones of our existences. :¬)
You can find John’s blog recall of our meeting here by the way!