Online Friends… to Real Life Ones?

About a month ago, I went to a friend’s book signing. She’s a really big deal to me, so much so that… I flew all the way to Utah, and stayed in a hotel room with someone I didn’t know just to be there for her big day.

So, plane ride be damned, I flew to Utah to meet Elana and watch her sign books to an insane amount of people. GO ELANA!

And, while I was there, I decided to meet my friends that I’ve been playing video games with for the last six years.

Let’s just let that sink in a bit, I’ve been playing video games with people for the last SIX years, and I’ve never even met them. Wow.

I thought it would be weird. We know each other online… not out in the real world. I mean, we’re facebook friends or whatever, so it’s not like we’ve NEVER seen each other, but still. We know voice inflections, not facial expressions.

I met them in stages, not all at the same time– I was woo nervous to do that! First, I drove over and picked up a couple of my online friends, we jumped in the car drove out to Park Cities, slid down the mountains on scooters, and didn’t stop talking the entire time. We have tons in common or we wouldn’t talk to each other like eight times a week ANYWAY… so it was just like that.

Then, I met the next group for dinner. (I should mention that they all knew each other already.) I was nervous walking in, but in less than five minutes– it was just like we were talking on the computer.

Seriously, we were grabbing food off each other’s plate, making fun of each other, and just chowing down. We laughed, we drank, and we went home to play some video games! Heck, the next night we even went to a movie! Look at us getting out from in front of our tiny monitors to go stare at bigger ones!

It’s just so easy with them. It always has been, but I thought that was just because of the online thing… I was wrong. They’re actually really my friends– true to life for realsies.

And it’s hella cool.