Les Internets

I booked all my travel stuff. I'm a goin' to California for a wedding in a month and a half! Wooo-ee! And due to saving up 90,000 Visa travel points equalling $450, I got a return plane ticket for $115. And then I booked a hotel room for $89 a night, after tax totalling $195 US. I can't believe how affordable this is.

Now, I've been on a message board for about three and a half years. I've been on less and less as fewer of the friends I've made are frequenting it and more are on Facebook. But in the earlier years, it was a lifeline for me. We all shared everything and got to know each other on this amazing personal level, and we argued with each other full force and then laughed about it later. Such is the power of the Internet.

I've met four of these friends in person, one is a Canadian in a neighbouring city, whom I get to see every few months. She's fantastic. Another is a professor in California who I've seen twice along with my fellow Canadian boarder on his academic visits to the city. Another is a good friend I got to meet in California (lots of Californians on this board) September '08 and we got on great and I wished we lived closer. And the last, who I actually met first when he was on a business trip he'd taken to Toronto, is getting married to a woman he met on the boards, and that's whose wedding I'm going to. I'm looking forward to meeting her in person too.

And as though it wasn't awesome enough to see these two get married (the groom is a really great guy and I've heard wonderful stuff about the bride from those who know her in real life), and being able to see my good friend again, I'll also get to meet more people from the boards.

I was 23 when I started meeting all these people. I'm in many ways a different person than I was, in the sort of way people are after a few years of personal growth. This board was in many ways a part of that growth. As I was adjusting to a new life and new apartment, new single status, new and rediscovered friends, I was connecting with these people. They know nearly all my personal secrets and feelings. And being in their company in real life has been a very calming experience because of that.

Most people in my life who know about the boards don't really get it. And I couldn't expect them to, really. They chuckle and shake their heads, possibly thinking I'm a little nuts. Maybe I am and maybe we are. But come May, we can all be nuts together as we celebrate a couple that the boards brought together. Like it or hate it, the Internet changes people's lives.