The Real People
In the modern Internet era, where our interactions with other people can be primarily or exclusively online, I've stopped distinguishing between IRL and online human beings. You are all real people to me. In my professional life, a good portion of my customers are voices on the telephone or composers of emails. My job is to solve problems for those people and their very real issues. Lots of times, but not always, I get a verbal or written "thanks" for helping them out, but I'd help them even if all I got was silence. People with good manners are a bonus.
Even with folks I first met by sharing the same physical space, most interactions tend to come through a computer monitor or cell phone screen. This includes my own flesh and blood. I see more pictures of my grandchildren on Facebook than I get to fill my retinas with their antics. I am a firm believer in looking at pictures. It's something I do every day.
Some of my online-only friends on the IndyWeb make it hard to visualize them because they are camera-shy or have privacy concerns. Rather than post photos of themselves, they use avatars or have commissioned drawings to represent their looks to the Internet. I wish I had the ability to conjure a real person's image in my mind's eye from those representations, but alas. When I think of them, it's that little multicolored square that I see. Of course, for the more eloquent and prolific ones, I also see the world they describe in their interactions with the rest of us. For the photographers I follow, I see their whole world from behind their lens, even if they seldom get in front of it.
In January, I started blogging mostly because I wanted to get in on a couple of specific tech conversations. Then I found out that the people having those conversations weren't one-dimensional "tech-only" stereotypes. They also had opinions about politics and social issues. They had funny stories about their kids, their parents, their partners, and their co-workers. I found people who fall into some of the tiny niches where I often feel alone, like liberal military vets and newly retired Gen-Xers. I also found people who had their own niches and were great at explaining how it felt to be in them, so now I know a trans girl who is a software developer from the PNW with an immigrant wife who still has parents like mine. I love it.
I know enough about online relationships after 30 years of being in them to understand that sometimes they can be more ephemeral than the solely IRL kind. People can disappear for any number of reasons. They get tired, they get mad, they get busy, and then they are gone. Hopefully, the IndyWeb ethos of owning and controlling your own space helps keep that to a minimum. I know several people who have been blogging for decades. They have yet to disappear. They give me hope. In any case, though, the fear of someone leaving doesn't keep me from investing in these newfound friendships. I get a lot of pleasure from them, and there's practically an endless supply of people to approach as if I were a kid on the playground instead of the gray-headed grandfather I really am.
All it takes to begin a friendship online is to reach out to someone and tell them you liked what they wrote, and maybe throw in why and whether it helped you or not. You can take two minutes and make it the start of an enriching relationship, and you have multiple opportunities to do it every day. And the best part is that you are doing it with real, live people, so mind your manners and practice the golden rule because everyone has feelings, and your job is to be a net positive in the world. Remember that.
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