"Online Friendships"
August 27, 2001, 1:33 a.m.

Searching Collab project for August, 2001

Current Topic: Online Friendships.
Interpret as you wish.

It's easy for folks to be friendly online. We don't have to deal so much with physical appearances. Although how we present ourselves online is usually an expression of who we are - inside. Or at least who we hope to be.

Sometimes I wish there was a way to actually meet the folks I've struck-up an online friendship with. I treasure the anonymity of it all. I am free to express myself more online than I would in person. It feels safer. My mask is off, or at least partially.

I notice too that the difficulty I have with letting down my mask in real life - still comes up for me online. I find I don't share my real feelings - I only share superficially. Even when I post in my diary here, I am constantly editing and taking things out. I just don't want to be so vulnerable as to open myself up so much.

Since I've started this diary I have shared so many personal, intimate, painful and even joyous things.

But the crux of it is - I still don't feel comfortable sharing so openly, yet I admire with all my heart those folks who do so with an eloquence and a piercing honesty. I think of Gaygirl and Eloi and Vex and all the others that I am amazed by daily. The list goes on.

I like people, yet being the introvert I am - I don't make friends easily which is why I have only a few close friends.

As far as intimate online friendships. I don't have any. I treasure my friendships, both online and offline, but I'm stingy with intimacy.

Heck, I'm 45 years old. (For some silly reason, I've been trying not to date myself in my diary so that folks don't really know how old I am. Like it's a secret.) - If I haven't learned by now how to be intimate, how to share from my soul so that it touches another human being, then I suppose I'm stuck with being boring - because after all, intimacy is the salt which adds texture and flavor to friendships.

That's sad. Writing this does make me see that I'm not being fair to myself or to my friends by withholding who I am - inside. Online or not.