Virtual friends

I'm a bit behind in blogging, largely courtesy of a three-day training course for work. But anyway...

Last Monday, I did something I've never done before: I met several virtual friends, three of whom I'd never met before except for electronically. Earlier this year, inspired by a close friend of mine who was doing fabulously well, I joined WeightWatchers, but being quite averse to the idea of meetings, joined as an online member, which meant my meetings were via the discussion boards. I've found these have become quite an addiction, and I look forward to logging on every day, to see what my "friends" are up to.

It's strange how familiar we can become with people we've never met. There, I guess we all have something in common: we all want to lose weight, but often there are deeper psychological issues we share, sometimes buried deep within our psyche, sometimes bubbling to the surface. People will post about something someone's said to them, and others will say how this has happened to them, or will write with passion because that something has obviously touched a nerve. I did it yesterday -- and just proceeded to go into a rant, so I can tell that needs to be the topic of another post.

I found the whole process of signing up interesting. First I had to come up with a moniker. This was hard enough. In the end I went for Arankalee -- my son said, "Ah, you named it after Arinka, the hero of your novel, and your middle name." He was half right. But Aranka was the name of a dietician I once saw -- the only other time since I've been married that I've successfully lost weight. I did find it strange then, this similiarity of names.

But then I realised fairly soon that I had met one of the other members, Lisa, once before, and I didn't know whether I should say anything or not. For a start, I didn't know if she would remember. Also, because I was expecting to fail and slink away unacknowledged I wanted to stay anonymous. But fairly shortly after joining, there was an incident with a past member who had been banned several times and kept trying to come back as a new member, and people were suspicious, and I thought it the perfect opportunity to reveal who I was. And it was. I felt so much better, and it was lovely that Lisa did remember me and was very welcoming. (I'd already figured out from her posts that she was a wonderfully supportive person, so that made things easier.)

Anyway, she's also more socially connected on the boards than I am, and a good organiser, so when she said she was organising a get-together at a local coffee shop, I jumped at the chance. Especially because it was a day I only had to do half my normal class prep, because I was coming up to the above-mentioned training course.

I recognised Lisa straightaway though her hair was shorter, a different colour and she was only a shadow of her former self. But then I suppose I'd seen photos on her blog too. I met Di, Tracy and Briar for the first time. It amazes me how you can sit down with people you've never met before and yarn like old friends. (Just as it's strange that after a long break from friends, you can find some you have heaps to talk about, and it's as if you've never been away, whereas with others the time is punctuated with long, awkward silences.) But perhaps it's not strange at all. I think often when people only meet electronically, they share intimate things about themselves that they might be too shy to talk about in person. I know I had a long term email "relationship" (only in the sense of friends, or perhaps a bit like a mentorship) with a young Brisbane guy a few years ago. He game me my superhero name: Danger Girl, and to me he will always be J-Man. He even came to visit with his family, and I caught up with him while I was at Clarion. Word got out that I was secretly seeing an elf. All right, he is tall and thin, but I swear he does not have pointy ears. Hmm, I'm getting off the track.

My point was that I met these strangers and felt as though I'd known them for years. We shared family problems, advice, gossip, all kinds of stuff, and at the end I was sorry I couldn't stay on, but I still did have to go prepare a class. Such is the life of a writer-teacher.