8 of 30 — Your favorite internet friend

My favorite internet friend?

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Now that's a weird thing to write about. I don't think have any internet friends anymore. I used to chat online a lot and make friends but it was always kind of weird. A lot of them were paintball guys... but since I don't do that anymore. It was fun to talk to people from other countries...or at least they could have been from other countries. Who knows. I just liked to think that everyone was telling the truth even though I wasn't. Even later back in time we all used to walk over to Elicia's house, the only one we knew who had the internet, and we would all collectively talk in a Buffy the Vampire chatroom.... that's embarrassing..... haha, we had fun though. I remember my dad and Judy had america online and the one thing they asked is that we don't go into a chatroom... so of course we did. One New Years Ashley and I were babysitting. I was either in 7th or 8th grade because my arm was broken and since I did that once in 7th and once in 8th it could go either way. 8th grade sounds more plausible for our ages and Miranda's age. So after we put her to bed we dialed up the america online and went straight into a chatroom. We had been talking back and forth with Elicia and Brittney back at home throughout the night and they were doing the same thing. We got into a conversation with an interesting person, who knows what we were talking about, we always made things up and made one person out of a combination of whoever people we knew. This particular person kept us talking for a little while but then started to creep us out... when they asked "How's your arm Erica?" We immediately freaked out...thinking... our parents were right! The internet is dangerous! Who is watching us?? How do they know!?? But then put the pieces together and called Elicia and Brittney. They found us and were messing around but it scared the shit out of us, haha.

What makes a good internet friend? Someone that is always online when you are and has more to say than just "hey" "what are you doing?" "that's cool" "lol" Someone that cheers you up when you're sitting alone on a friday night because you don't have real friends and you talk about the cool things that you could do together on a friday night if you were hanging out in real life? My uncle Tim found his wife online and she was from Australia and then moved over here and married him. She's awesome and it totally worked out for them. They have been married for at least 10 years... it works for some people but I would never be able to function in a society that I didn't have interaction with people in real life.

Maybe your favorite friend is the internet? It stops people now a days from leaving the house. I know I've run late before because I really needed to check something online. I can think to myself that I will just 'check things' right before I go to bed....and 3 hours later I think to myself....why am I not sleeping yet?? In college I definitely stayed up many many nights chatting online and doing who knows what else but I didn't sleep as much so I'm also going to assume that the number of insomniacs dramatically increased once the internet became mainstream. Also it probably made hermits more hermitty....haha. Don't get me wrong, I love the internet and facebook helps me stay connected with people without having to call them... I really dislike talking on the phone, I would rather be in person or over text... so it's a wonderful tool. I just hope it doesn't get too far out of hand where the term internet friend means the same thing as friend.