When worlds collide

Since I began blogging earlier this year, I've met many cool, new friends. Well, blogosphere friends, anyhow. This isn't new to me, and I suspect it is the same for many of you out there on the internet - you have two categories of friends, the online friends and the RL friends.

Now, I have met some of my online friends in real life over the years, mainly folks I've gotten to know on the various adoption-related communities I've been a member of for years now. It's always a little odd when the two worlds collide, isn't it? Reconciling the voice you've ascribed to a person from reading their posts and messages with the actuality standing in front of you - that's the one that always gets me. For example, for all that I've joked about the "aboots" and the "ehs" over the years with my friend Andy (I believe we've known each other online since '02 or '03), her Canadian accent was still surprising to me when we met for the first time last summer. (And this is with us being virtual twins, too!)

Well, today I'm meeting a blogosphere friend for the first time. We figured out that we live in the same town, so we're doing lunch at one of my favorite local lunching spots. I fully expect that we will have a good time and am not at all nervous that she's going to turn out to be some creepy dude named Bob. As it turns out, both her husband and mine were wary, asking each of us "Isn't it a bit odd to meet someone you've never met before?" But you know what? I'm not concerned one bit. I'm looking forward to meeting someone new and hopefully making a RL friend. (As you should be well aware by now, I'm hardly the shy, retiring type.) Of course, she may be worried that I'm Hannibal Lecter or at the least, a creepy dude named Bob... I've warned her that I *am* weird, but I swear, I'm harmless! I just hope she likes me - I do still get flashbacks to my nerdy, friendless, childhood days every now and again.

Stay tuned for how our lunch turns out...