Ten years ago, the concept of actually having friends that I’d never met was so foreign to me that I’d never even given it the thought required to dismiss it. Sure, I used the internet to communicate, but that was always with people that I already knew. I wasn’t real big on talking to strangers in the first place and just did not see the point in talking to invisible strangers.

But people and technology change. Six or seven years ago, I started reading online journals, and eventually those people started to become real to me. Of course, they’d thought they were real all along, but for me, it was like developing one side of a friendship. They didn’t know it, but it was drastically expanding my world view.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I’ve got people that I consider friends, and it’s mutual. I call them ‘invisible friends’ sort of tongue-in-cheek, but there’s an undercurrent of truth to that. I’m still wrapping my head around the thought that you can get to know someone based solely on the written word, but I’m getting there.

I think I’ve finally thrown all of those reservations out. Some of my favorite people in the world these days are those who I’ve never seen in person, never gone for a beer with, and never hung out with topless in the hot tub. But friends they are, no mistake about it. I know hold the opinion that this medium lets you see much more of the inside of a person than any number of years sitting on adjacent stools at the bar. I’ve got ridiculous girl-crushes on at least two of them (Suzanna Danna and LA come immediately to mind.) I want to scoop both of these women up and go have fun with them, and I find it just mind-boggling that I could have stumbled across such incredible people on the internet. I’m sure that fabulous people exist all over the place, but how would I have found them before? Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Ladies, I so wish that I could join you at the gathering in Wisconsin. What are the odds that you’d both be there?! It’ll have to be another time and another place, but y’all are kind of stuck with me now!