Pug Meetup – Buddha gettin’ sniffed, originally uploaded by jnhkrawczyk.

If you feel sadness because there could be a chance you could be losing an online friend or two, does that mean you don’t have any friends in real life?  Or you don’t value the ones you do have?  I don’t think so.  I think people who think this way miss the point.

For years, I have made many online friends, many who I still talk on a regular basis.  Additionally, I have been able to name some of them “real-life” friends.  They are the readers of my blog, my FriendFeeders, Tweeters, and other past social networks, like MySpace.  Whenever, I need to vent, pour my heart out, or want to share something funny, they are the ones who are there every day laughing and crying alongside me.  We share similar interests, and we have one thing in common: Many of the things we find interesting are not shared by our “real-life” friends.  My “real-life” friends sometimes make fun of me that I am a super geek, and that they have no clue how I can be so into technology.  I never have to hear this taunt from my online friends because many of them share my same passion.  If they don’t, they respect it.  Disclaimer: I put quotations around this because I feel that the people online are my real-life friends as well.  However, this is the only way to differentiate to people I have befriended in a non-Internet way.

I really hope that I never lose my online friends because they are the ones who keep me company when I am at work or alone on a Friday night.  When something happens to one of them, I am genuinely happy or sad (depending on the news) for them.  I feel that even though I haven’t met many of them in real life, they are still people I care about and wish all the happiness in the world for them and their loved ones.

I was really bummed when I heard of the possibility that one of my favorite social networks FriendFeed was probably not going to be the same in the future.  The first and only reason was for the people I have met on there.  They are all amazing people, and they are all different. This is what makes them special.  If I am sad of the possibility of not having the way to speak to them every day, like I have, then that doesn’t make me a loser.

Thank you for everything, and I hope that you know how much I appreciate all of you.  If one social network goes away, I will follow you wherever you go.