Online Friends are Just Friends

Image: theiddm.wordpress.com

Today I'm grieving a friend who passed away suddenly yesterday. I never met her in person, but she was still a wonderful and dear friend. I met her on a forum that started for a very special kind of perfume, but over the years it became such more. Even though I had never met Kathy in person, we had been friends over a decade.

When I was a kid, I never had a lot of friends. I've always been an introvert and being a geek didn't help matters. Now that I'm older, I don't get out a lot. In part because of my chronic pain but in part because I'm still an introvert.

But the internet gives us the ability to be able to make friends all over the world. Even though I may never met most of my online friends in person, they are still my friends. We share our lives and our issues thanks to social media. Online friends share in our triumphs and help with our issues by giving advice. Even though I didn't get a lot of visitors in the hospital last year, my online friends were there in the internet.

Today my little slice of the internet is mourning our loss. Kathy was our friend and her sudden passing is shocking and sad. But I'm thankful for all my friends, online and off, because they bring joy to my life.