General Discussion

have you ever done it? how did it go?

i live at one of the world's most popular tourist destinations (idk if it's against fr's rules to say where you live but better safe than sorry) so i've met two of my internet friends because their families wanted to come here. it's always a little awkward for me at first but it's fun too. i get kind of self conscious wondering if i'm how they imagined, if i'm ugly compared to my photos, etc though.

one of my closest friends/crush visited my city once but it was years before we ever met online, so we didnt see eachother. thinking about that makes me want to scream lol

never happened to me personally, but it did to one of my friends. the funny thing was it was coincidental too.

shes in this music producers group with a bunch of others around her age, one of them just so happened to go to a school close to ours. this wasn't some local gathering mind you, by complete chance a stranger on the internet just so happened to live close by. they ended up dating for a bit



edit: also wow u have a pretty spooky avatar

@bridybrid thats pretty lucky. no one i befriend online ever lives close by. i'm lucky if they even live in the same country lol

Done it plenty of times!

It's always a little awkward at first. I'm socially anxious and I have body image issues, so I tend to assume people will find me weird / ugly and are disappointed with how I am in real life compared to my online presence. ( I'm significantly more outspoken and confident here. ) It's really terrifying for the first hour or so, but after that things usually settle and then it's quite fun!

All of the people I have met were super awesome and I didn't regret it one bit.

Now if only they didn't always live across the country / overseas ...

i met my best friend of 5+ years by following them randomly on tumblr.....they flew up this past summer and i was so terrified it was gonna be awkward or that for some reason we wouldn't get along irl?? but it was so so good. i'm gonna try to fly down there next, hopefully sometime this year.

i knew what my friend looked like/is like bc we talk every day and have done for as long as we've been friends so i wasn't worried abt this, but i recommend meeting your internet friend in a public place and preferably not alone, especially if you're still a teen. ya never know dude.

I've only met my husband from online to in person. Friends I haven't because I lack a decent car and I don't live close enough to anybody.

yea lots of times. my best friend lives across the country and i've been to see her once last summer, and i'm going again in march. before that i flew out to colorado three times to visit a friend. i've also met a handful of other friends who live close by.

whether or not it's awkward depends on the person and how close we are.

I've met a decent few.

The most surprising was when a guild mate from an MMO showed up in my hospital room. My closer online friends know I have some pretty bad health issues, and one time something hit unexpectedly and I ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks without being able to notify anybody. About 4 or 5 days in, a visitor shows up that I don't recognize until she called me by my character name, and when I somewhat suspiciously said "Y-yeah?", she called me by the nickname that her character called my character and ran up to hug me. Then she gave me a light, playful smack and said not to scare her like that again.

It was nice. We had talked online practically daily for about 6 years, so it was nice to finally be in the same room and realize we were just as dorky in person as we were online. She stayed in town for a week, so it made the hospital stay a lot less intolerable having someone come visit and just be silly with.

it's my plan to! five of my closest friends aren't that far from where i live and i'll be driving soon so hopefully one summer i can get enough funds to head out and meet them. the rest will definitely be harder though, because they're in different countries >.>