The anatomy of a friendship: meeting century_eyes for the first

Yesterday, I met century_eyes in person for the first time. We've been friends now for ... half a year? a little more? something like that.

century_eyes and I became friends through the Sims—admiring one another's pretty boys lead to encouraging one another to post Sims stories; we became involved in each other's Sims-fic, lapsing into thoughtful discussion and great enthusiasm, which is where we really bonded. When I disappeared from LJ for a while, as I am wont to do, she poked me in email and we began sending each other long emails as a more reliable, universally intimate, way to keep in touch.

I have a few friends like this—hopefully you know who you are! We met in some arbitrary, potentially silly way online, we fell into enthusiastic conversation, and somehow we ended up with a strong friendship forged on emails, letters, and comment tag—but we've never met face to face. (If sometimes not for lack of desire and intent.)

I rely on online communication because people intimidate me and most social expectations confuse me. I'm convinced that everyone is judging me and the fact that I would prefer to skip the smalltalk and jump straight to honest conversation doesn't help convince me that I'm being judged well. Online, in the right format, people are different. You aren't stuck hoping that a friend of a friend will share you interests—you can seek out interesting people from a bigger pool, using better tools. Journal entries, emails, and letters encourage thoughtful content and provide just enough distance and anonymity that they also encourage remarkable honesty. It's almost surreal—you're stripped of the intimacy and instinct of appearance, of body language, of voice, but you're granted blessing that's tenuous and almost indescribable: potential interest, freedom of conversation, the basis of a strong friendship—sometimes before you know one another's real names.

century_eyes and I used that strange blessing of the internet to forge one of the closest friendships I've known.

It's because of her that we were able to meet. She has family not far from here, so detouring to visit me wasn't much a burden; moreover she's the type to take the lead in social situations and bless her for it—on my own I will exhaust myself with worry before plans are even made, and so nothing comes of it. She, however, told me when she'd be able to come to town and we built a plan from that—which was much easier for me and, a minor miracle, allowed something to come from it.

We met at Starbucks, walked around downtown, got lunch—nothing big or special because the point was less to do things and more just to have the simple time to talk in person. I don't know what I expected exactly. The days before were concurrently so surreal and nerve-wracking that I don't think I had any coherent expectations. What I got was indeed surreal. It was not as profound or as mundane as I expected it might be.

It was friendship.

Text-based relationships work for me in part because it's a different mode of communication (one less time-sensitive, one more thoughtful, in short one that better soothes my neuroses and fits my personality) and in part because people are different, online. Freedom and honestly is the joy of much online communication but it is also the caveat: it is so valuable and surprising because it is not how people usually act, face to face. As a result, the person you know online may not be the person you meet in the flesh—or at least they may not act like it, which is close enough to the same thing.

But what I found was friendship. We didn't perfectly mimic our emails but if I bemoaned that, well then what the would be the point of meeting outside of email? We talked about little things, day to day things, personal history things—living arrangements and work/school histories and pets, the sort of thing that one wants to know about a friend but never merits the time or interest of typing up for an email. Where topics overlapped the deeper stuff, the heart-beating stuff, the soul-needing stuff, we knew what was there. We knew the depth behind one another's details. It was surreal—even when I got home afterward, the whole day still felt surreal—but it was surprisingly simple without growing shallow.

It's an inverted way to go about it, perhaps: to reveal to someone your heart, and some time later discuss the minutiae of your life. But the result is the same, and the result is what I'm privileged to find: a friendship. Perhaps a friendship better-formed, from my point of view, because it's honest and intimate despite its youth and because it's one I was able to stumble upon, backwards and introverted and paranoid as I am.

I came back yesterday, took a three hour nap, and then needed about eleven hours more sleep before I felt rested. It was all very odd and surreal, and exhausting—in no small part because it was sunny out. And it was worth it.

We're looking at opportunities for other, longer meetings, and I look forward to them all. And she liked me too! And thought it went well! And thank goodness that I've been reassured of as much, because I could worry myself to death about it.

As I was getting ready to leave, all my clothing, all the things I needed to bring along just jumped to hand as if the universe was smiling upon my outing.

She had the most startling, beautiful pale eyes.

Yesterday was a good day.