Blogs and Friendship

(And all dedicated Austen buffs recognize the reference, right?)

Amy asked me to blog about a comment I made on her blog about, um, blogging. While I dashed off the comment hardly without thinking, it's taken me a few days to organize my thoughts for a post.

What's the big deal with blogging, anyway? Why can so many people be interested, nay, addicted to reading what amounts to other people's online journals? In my case, I could argue that it's how I keep up with my distant friends. Blogging closes the gap between us, so instead of living scattered across the country, we are all part of one big virtual neighborhood. And that's very true. I went through some very lonely times here, when making friends was all hard work with little reward, and my online neighborhood was was kept me afloat.

Well, okay, granted. It's like the age-old tradition of letter-writing, only updated and instant. But why would anyone visit blogs of people they don't know? Even better, blogs of people they don't know, which use code names for family and never say where they live? How is that keeping in contact with friends? Because it can't be a real friendship if you don't actually know the person.

It can be friendship. In the world of anonymous blogs, you enter a society where regular rules don't apply. You can skip the surface getting-to-know you chatter and get down to real discussions, real conversation. You can talk about things online that, in person, you'd tell only to your closest friend... assuming you have a friend that close. And because your anonymous readers don't have other loyalties to divide them, they can be supportive, encouraging, and objective. It's all the benefits of a close friendship without a lot of the work.

It's also less risky. You have to put a great deal of yourself into a face-to-face relationship, which means you can be hurt that much more deeply if it falls apart. Blogging gives you distance: you can choose what of yourself you want to give, and you can choose what of the other person you want to receive. The friendships you form can be very real, but easier to handle.

I always have to remember that my online friends -- even those I know personally -- let me see only what they want me to see. Most of my friends are very transparent, probably more transparent than I am on my own blog. But we bloggers are always in control of what goes on our blogs, so even the less-savory stories are revealed by our own hands. In short, when you're online, you never see the whole person. As far as blogging goes, that's perfectly fine. I give what I want, and I receive what I want.

The danger lies in letting online friendships replace face-to-face contact. It's so much harder to build in-person friendships that it's tempting to give it up. Don't. Keep up your blogging friends, but get out and meet whole people. Invite people to visit. Learn to love people whose voices irritate you, who forget to knock before coming in to your house, who really need a haircut but never seem to get one. Realize how rewarding it is to have a friend who isn't afraid to hug you, whose impeccable outfits leave you in awe, who laughs loudly at your jokes.

As warming as it is to get, say, twenty-five encouraging comments at once on your quiet, private blog (like I ever get twenty-five comments, not that that would have me walking on air all week or anything), it just isn't the same as sitting in a friend's kitchen on a snowy day, eating Ramen noodles and listening to the kids playing in the other room. Long live blogging! And don't forget the whole person.

-- SJ