in fake life
I’ve had internet friends in some fashion or the other since I was a teenager and realized that despite this being a part of my social life for a long time, I judge myself pretty harshly for it. It’s not that my feelings don’t make sense (they totally do), it’s that public perception of internet correspondence is still in its infancy.
The internet as a communication tool that the average person uses has only been around for ~30 years. For some unknown reason, we’re willing to acknowledge letter-based correspondence as a valid and quaint thing, but denigrate text-based correspondence. Maybe it’s because handwritten letters aren’t data fed to algorithms for targeted advertising, maybe emails are less precious to us because we’ve had to send so many, idk. Maybe my friends should be more enthusiastic about writing me back when I send them snail mail. I digress.
In addition to being on message boards during a time where the internet felt like it was dominated by 13-year-old girls learning HTML from Lissa Explains, I used to chat with randos on AIM. I had a family friend who was at public school while I attended a small private school and I was insanely jealous of her large class because I hated everyone in mine. She knew this, and kindly invited me to chat rooms with her guy friends. One boy was named Andy. Andy and I ended up chatting every day and exchanged 150 x 150 px photos of each other.
Eventually, Andy and I agreed to meet in person once to see a movie. I dragged one of my other friends along because the excitement of seeing him in the flesh for the first time made my stomach turn. Despite the awkwardness, things went pretty well and Andy and I chatted for a couple more weeks. He thought I was cute, I knew he was tall. I was about to go on vacation in England with my dad and told Andy that I would bring back a souvenir.
Well, I came back from England, and Andy wasn’t on AIM anymore. My family friend told me that their school held an assembly about strangers online and he freaked out. It didn’t matter that we met in person or knew each other’s hopes and dreams and last names, I was still an internet stranger. The whole thing makes me laugh today, but it was DEVASTATING at the time. Here was this person who had become part of my daily routine, and poof. Gone. Just like that.
It’s fine though, he was part of my fake life.