On online friendship
Or, the art of meeting people
Nearly every friend I see with any sort of frequency is a friend I made from the internet. I’m not saying all my friends are from online, but a lot of them. And even a married couple I know from offline met each other online (on Xanga, of all places).
It’s not really weird these days to make friends on social media, but it was a Big Deal 20+ years ago, when I was doing it on Diaryland and LiveJournal and then (gasp) meeting them in real life. There was a strong “but what if they’re a serial killer??” vibe back then. I drove separately to see Two Weeks Notice and drink Icees with a pal, the risk is low! (Hi, Laura!) And who’s to say that the guy who was in one of your classes last semester that you really only have a passing acquaintance with will not murder you after you go to Marie Callender's and then see The Others? How is that safer?? (Yes, that is a date I went on, and the only one with someone I didn’t know reasonably well, lol.)
It’s hard to make friends as an adult, I get it. You don’t have the forced proximity of school anymore, and dating from work is fraught-to-forbidden (assuming you know your coworkers at all? My job is fully remote and I know basically nothing about any of them, other than what state they live in and which ones are terrible at their job). Church is a classic (met my husband there, in fact) but lots of people are not religious, or stepped away from it (raises hand). There are secular humanist groups, which seem pretty cool, although they aren't exactly widespread (I actually pass one on my way to the grocery store every other week, which is the only reason I know about their existence). Some bookstores have book clubs? Hang around at an indie craft store and chat people up? There just aren’t a lot of places to meet people organically.
Which is why I make all my friends on the internet now. A lot of my Pocket Pals™ are from Twitter, which conveniently includes several people who live locally (or did, before they tragically left me for stupid Chicago) and now Instagram. If at all possible, I do recommend befriending people who live in the same place, so that you can politely insist that they hang out and become your IRL friend. It works!
And it also kind of “proves” that it’s real. Because sometimes it will feel like online friendships aren't real, or people might even straight up tell you that. (Especially if you have an absolutely ruthless seven year old at home who has discovered the concept of air quotes and loves to use them when talking about your “author friends.” Ice cold.) Sometimes it’s helpful to remind yourself of the ways that people have demonstrated their friendship, despite being online-only. I, for example, have friends who send me snail mail, answer my questions related to their field, swap Bad Parents stories, send gifts, etc. (See also the hype folder.) You don’t have to live in the same geographical location to be friends! You also don't have to be BEST FRIENDS to still be friends!
I get that sometimes that falls short. Online friendship is often asynchronous (although if you both blow off your jobs, you can approximate real time, lol), and there’s something to be said for face-to-face conversation, breathing the same air, going out for ice cream, whatever. Sometimes you want more than just typed words (or a voice, I guess??) on your phone. But that doesn’t mean that the feelings you have for someone from online—fondness, friendship, loooove—aren’t real.
I think this is part of why I (and so many others) enjoy an epistolary element in romance books. It’s always about falling in love with the person for who they are. There’s no pheromones, no instalust, no appealing symmetrical face or spark of electricity when you touch. It’s just pure personality, and who wouldn’t want to know that we are adored for our sparkling wit and not just our stunning good looks? [photo of me looking hilariously terrible that could go here available upon request]
Online relationships are a big part of the Book of the Biweek, the very-soon-to-be-released and my favorite book I’ve read so far this year, The Art of Catching Feelings, by my “author friend” Alicia Thompson.
Let us pause for a minute to admire the perfect vibes of the cover, the title! My husband retains approximately one-tenth of all information I tell him, so for weeks he called this one “the one with the good title.” He may be inattentive, but he's not wrong.
Now, for making friends online, I generally suggest politely engaging with someone’s content over time. I call this the Costanza Method, based off the episode of Seinfeld where George said he was like a commercial jingle—annoying at first, but you hear it enough times and the next thing you know you’re singing it in the shower. Someone sees your likes and replies enough times and they eventually think of you friendly-like. Engage some more, maybe some chatting…voila! You're friends now. I know it works, because I have been on both ends of it.
The other option is bolder: the DM slide. I think it works better if you have already established a rapport on main, but sometimes circumstances are such that you just have to go for it.
Circumstances such as, oh, you got drunk at a baseball game and heckled a member of the home team and made him cry and now you’re reaching out to apologize. Which, as it happens, is what Daphne Brink does in TAOCF. Except she neglects to point out that she is the heckler. (Sidebar to note that the heckle is written so masterfully. It’s pretty mild and funny on its face, so it’s not like we’re mad at Daphne about it, but then you get his side and it’s like ohh, yeah, that would be devastating.)
Now, most major leaguers don’t usually chat up strangers in the DMs, but Chris Kepler is clearly Going Through It, and a message from the Bookstagrammer Duckiesbooks catches his eye and he impulsively messages back. And then they keep messaging. And then texting. And it turns out she’s funny and clever and sweet, and talking to her is the kind of connection he’s been needing.
I always have at least one regret for every photo, but this one is special because I have multiple. Also, please, Substack, let me add captions to any media I add, I have so many Thoughts
If I had a book club (a traditional book club, as opposed to my hypothetical Hot and Ready Book Club, where my attractive friends join me for some Little Caesars and then everyone just shares about something they read recently) I think my first discussion topic for TAOCF would be about connection (other topics include near misses and the sliding bubble of life on the swirling vortex of time, messiness, the toxic masculinity in professional baseball, etc.). Daphne and Chris are both looking for connection and have an immediate connection when they start DMing, but they also are avoiding opportunities for connecting with people in their “real” lives. What is it about anonymity/online interactions that make us more comfortable sharing things with strangers, even as we withhold the information from the people close to us offline? Discuss.
One of the posts I’ve seen on Instagram about TAOCF described it as “He falls twice,” because after Chris falls for “Duckie,” Daphne starts working with the team and he falls for her again. I really liked that phrasing, because, as we’ve established about online relationships, the feelings he develops while talking to Duckie are just as real and valid as the feelings he has for Daphne. Who amongst us wouldn’t want to find a love so real, it happened twice?
I know you’re supposed to end posts with like, a call to action or a question to foster engagement or whatever, but I truly just want to know about the weird, now-defunct websites and message boards where y’all met your oldest internet friends and lovers. (a reminder that you can reply to the Substack email or change the first period in the url to an @ and both go to me directly if you ever have a comment that is Not Suitable on Main)