If you're anything like me, you'll understand what I'm talking about. If you've been on Delphi for a long time, you've lived it. And quite honestly, if you're not an internet junkie, you not only won't understand this, but you won't even be reading it, so go away, I'm not talking to you.
When someone in person asks you what your hobbies are, do you tell them you like hanging out on Delphi, and making friends with people you'll likely never meet? Do you tell them how to find you, and what your nickname is on Delphi? Do you give them directions of how to find your chat room, and let them know that they're welcome to visit you anytime? Or do you keep it a secret, or at least keep it all to yourself?
Whether you share your Delphi experience with others, or whether you keep it all to yourself, there's both a world of difference between online and offline experiences, and they are at the same time, exactly the same. There is both an intimacy to online communication, and an impersonalization to it. But the goal remains the same in both online and offline communications, and that goal is making friends. I'm talking real friends here, not "Facebook Friends."
Just don't ever let anyone tell you that this isn't real life, or that the people you meet online aren't your real friends.
I joined Delphi on December 28, 1998. I had gotten a computer with a modem for Christmas that year, and was exploring. I heard about a chat room I wanted to visit that appeared to be based on a book I'd read by Spider Robinson many years earlier, Callahan's Saloon.
I found the chat room, and I found what became my core group of friends on Delphi, many of whom I still hang out with, nearly 12 years later. My very first friend was a Canadian man who wrote absolutely startling poetry. In a move that was totally unlike me, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit, I wrote to him via his profile, and basically asked him if he would like to be my friend. I admired his intellect, and he must have admired my audacity. His name was David Brewer, and he agreed that he thought we would get along. :)
We were as alike as we were different. We were the same age. I was married, he was single. I had a happy and conventional childhood, he, less so. I had three brothers, he had a single sister. I was an agnostic, he was a Christian. I worked in business, he worked in the arts. He wrote complex poetry, I just closed my eyes and tapped out odd little stories. I was an obnoxious American, he was a gentle Canadian. ;P
It didn't matter. David & I became friends, and we, and several others we posted and chatted with daily, shared as much of our lives and years with each other as most best friends do. Maybe more. After all, other than your immediate family and the people you work with, how many people do you connect with every single day?
David met his wife, Lizkat (ELIZABETHKAT), at Callahan's, that same month we all joined Delphi. We physically met them for the first time in St. Louis, but at that point, we'd all known each other for months. David came down from the North, Lizkat came up from the South, the rest of us came from all over, including Australia. We held an engagement party for them in Boston a year later, we missed them in Seattle, then visited them in Toronto a year or two after that.
Life progressed for all of us: my son grew up, and their son was born. We lost and gained jobs, parents, children, our collective innocence, and our individual fortunes. Throughout it all, we kept track of each other, lost track of each other, checked in, and checked out. But we all knew where to come when we needed to touch base again.
This life, even if it is one lived in the relative silence of tapping keys and occassional computer notification tones, feels very real to me.
My friend, David Brewer (DGBREWER), died on Friday, October 15th, at the age of 54. We shared joys, sorrows, adventures, vacations, poetry, flights of fancy, fears, stories, fantasies, darkness, love, and hope.
The tears are still falling, and this grief is as real as it gets.