I have had the experience of talking about my SI friends with 3D friends, and having some (not all) of them look very suspicious and disdainful, and say things like that it was incomprehensible to them how anyone could be friends with someone whom they didn't know in real life, didn't even know what they looked like, etc., and that it was simply "fantasy," not "real," etcetera.
I've had the same weird reactions. I have to explain that unless one has experienced the potential warmth and intensity of these relationships, one is very foolish to dismiss them out of hand. One of the problems, I think, is that so few people today have ever enjoyed an 'espistolary' relationship themselves, despite the literary precedent, so they really cannot imagine in more than a distant sort of way.
BTW, I really like the idea of a get-together if it can be arranged. Meanwhile, do you expect to be in NYC any time soon? |
