It might have gone differently...

... I reflected as I travelled home yesterday after a day in London. It might have gone differently. 

On the last day of my leave and at very short notice, Sarah and I made a plan to meet up and spend the afternoon together pottering around a gallery and then "taking it from there"... For me, Sarah is the first person I've met in the world of blogging that I've now also met in person. And it was lovely. I'll get back to the what's and where's of our day (and the pretty stash above) in a bit...

When I think about it, and certainly if someone had tried to explain it to me before I'd experienced it, it seems like a weird old thing we do in the blogosphere - establish, develop and maintain relationships, even deep and meaningful friendships, with people we have never met and might, in some cases, never meet. 

I know in the time before blogs and the internet it did happen - this story always come to mind and beautifully illustrates this for me - but surely it's not only more possible but more likely, now that the tendrils of internet communication stretch across the planet and make it easier to connect, share and participate in each other's lives more regularly, to make these global relationships work? And isn't it awesome? As someone who remembers all too clearly the days and difficulties of trying to maintain even the strongest and most well-established relationships long-distance, when snail mail took more than a month to travel and one ten minute phone-call every second month was all I could afford to my family on the other side of the world, I know it has made it easier for me. I'm able to engage with those I care about daily if I want or need to, and so maintain my closeness to them. It's being able to share the small details, the trivia, the daily, weekly, monthly nuances of what we're doing, thinking and feeling that makes all the difference I believe. Instead of meeting in person only at momentous occasions and catching up on months or years of news, or very irregularly catching up telephonically because of differences in time zone, expense and so on, blogs and email and facebook and sms messaging mean we can share the equivalent of a quick, regular virtual chat at our individual convenience. And, taking it further, the joy of interacting visually and in real-time through a video link over Skype with my baby niece and young nephews (having them recognise me and blow kisses even before they can talk or show me their latest art project from that day at school or being able to watch them unwrap their Christmas presents, for example), or having my mother or sister or a dear friend visible and talking to me as I sort through my cupboards in the afternoon where I am, while they potter around their kitchen in the evening, or sip a cup of morning tea on the opposite side of the world where they are, is testament to the power of this amazing facility. It's more like having them in the room than anything but actually having them in the room can be. For someone like me, who is least comfortable communicating on the telephone (certifiably phobic about it actually) even with people I love, it has revolutionised keeping in touch.

So, waffly tangent about the joy of 21st century communications in general aside... back to bloggy friendships, yesterday, and my musings on the train home... Blogs fulfill a very important role in this social dimension of life for me now too. They allow me to not only show what I'm up to to my existing friends and family but to meet and get to know someone new, hang out (even when they are not physically live online), share bits and pieces of my life with them too and interact in a brief but regular and meaningful way through comments and emails. It's the stuff friendships are forged from and polished with. Granted, it's only glimpses and elements we share of our lives and I'm very, very conscious that my online life does not reflect the entirety of my offline life, nor could it ever fully replace it but I cannot deny that it's now integral to my life. And that it feels significant - valued and important... real. It's something we discussed during the course of the day, Sarah and I, something which neither of us anticipated when we began blogging but have both found to be an enriching aspect of it - how one can come to know and, more importantly, care about someone under these entirely online circumstances. And how sometimes, circumstance allow us to bring that into the "real" world offline, and what that feels like.

I'm not horribly lacking in self-esteem (most days) but I have many little insecurities and quirks and these are uncomfortably amplified when I am thrust into new social situations... After making the arrangements, as the moment drew near, I was struck very nervous at the prospect of actually meeting Sarah yesterday. As I said to her later, I believe we had more chance of hitting it off than many people who meet in person for the first time as through our blogs and emails, we know something about each other and have already established some basis for affection and rapport. I am (and so is Sarah, I now know) actually very shy though and as the moment to meet approached I became more and more anxious about how this might transfer into real life. What if we can't extend a conversation beyond the length of a comment? What if we find that we already know all we wish to know about each other? What if she loves the art at the gallery and I don't, or vice versa? What if my accent irritates her? What if she takes one look at me and hates my shoes or my squiggly teeth or my hairstyle or the way I twist my sugar wrappers when I'm done with them???

As it turned out, I don't think any of these things were true, or mattered enough to sink the day or the friendship. And besides, we can't really control some of this anyway, can we? I wore safe shoes and avoided having coffee so I wouldn't want sugar, but I let the occasional silences (and they were very occasional) just comfortably and naturally move back into  chat, I didn't hide how I felt about the art or the fact that I was a bit nervous or had not given any thought to what we might do after we left the gallery... The rest - the way I look, the way I sound - is just who I am and I cannot do much about it. And it was fine. I cannot speak for Sarah, but I had a lovely day and I look forward to the next time we can meet.

What occurred to me as I mulled this over late last night is that in many ways getting to know someone this way (online first) cuts through some of the superficial stuff that sometimes creates barriers to meeting and making friends of people we randomly encounter offline. I would never dismiss someone as a potential friend based on how they dress, their age, or which side of the spoon they drink their soup from but they say that we assess someone visually in the first few seconds of meeting and make judgments about whether or the extent to which we might get along before a single word is spoken. And this is true. I'm keenly sensitive to the damage that that this kind of superficial assessment can do, especially if taken to extremes, and guard against it fiercely. Some of the people I love most in the world have apparently very little or nothing in common with me if we measure what we see on the outside alone. But it's still valid to some degree and I'm as guilty as anyone in some circumstances of being initially influenced by subliminal associations I have with visual clues to who a person is. I would be way more wary, for example, of approaching a youth with knuckle tattoos wearing a hoodie in an inner city area to ask for directions than I would of the more mature woman in a raincoat and headscarf sitting next to him at the bus stop. He might well have the answer and be a sweetheart, and she might be inclined to hit strangers with her handbag and swear at them for all I truly know but I assess her as less risky and intimidating to engage with simply by her appearance, her gender, her age. It's very superficial but it's all I have to work with in those few moments.

In the online world, these things hardly factor. I don't know how old or what some of the people I really like online look like. And they don't know this about me. They might know a lot about me but I guarantee, there's a lot more they don't yet know. However, what they do know is significant. When we blog, we share our likes, dislikes, taste in books, music, art, food, thoughts, feelings... get to know each other inside first through these things. We literally see the world through each other's eyes when we look at photographs of landscapes, homes, family, personal treasures... and so we learn what's important to each other. We laugh together, we support each other,  we reveal the good and the bad of who we we are to each other (to greater or lesser extent) and we find things we have in common or differences to savour and, in some cases, we become friends. By the time we meet, if we meet, the fact that someone compulsively twists their sugar wrappers or has wrinkles or speaks differently is less likely to throw us off or to be an inhibiting factor. It might still. But I would hope not. Genuine affection sees past or through or does not even notice these things except as they add to the colour and texture of a person we already like, even care for.

I acknowledge that something we discover or reveal in a face-to-face meeting may well turn out to be a friendship deal-breaker even after having established these grounds for a relationship online. There's no denying the fact. One only has to look to internet dating for evidence. But in this blogging world of ours, I imagine that's relatively rare. Yes, things might have gone differently yesterday but as it is, I enjoyed Sarah's company and what we did together.  Six hours whizzed by and I was suddenly travelling back with a head full of new stuff I know and like about her and new experiences to treasure (and some cool stash).

Some of the highlights for me were:

~ the moment we recognised each other on the steps of the gallery 

~ the fact that she didn't flinch when she saw or heard me and I knew it would be all right (unless she just hides her involuntary reactions very well)

~ the exhibition, and finding out that both of us find elephant dung and coloured pins quite appealing as a creative medium

~ deciding what we would do next as the moment and mood took us

~ shopping at Anthropologie with someone who was as interested and inspired as I am by the way they got those paper curls dyed and arranged like that and the big mirror made of little old frames and smaller mirrors arranged like a gallery, which I think I'm going to try to recreate in my new hallway (yes, of course their was lots of other cool stuff but Anthropologie is at least as much about the shop dressing for me as the goodies one might buy!)

~ discovering that Sarah is not only willing to travel to but excited by browsing round a shop full of ribbons and feathers and frippery (and where we both came away with some loveliness to add to our respective hoards)

~ learning that she likes milk in her tea and lemon drizzle cake

~ finding out more about the amazing work she does with young children and how much this means to her

~ that she remembered details about me that I had forgotten I'd even revealed on my blog

~ that she listened patiently and didn't seem too put off by my sporadic and apparently uncontrollable rants (I know someone who bought half - yes, half - an Easter egg for his wife and then bragged about it. It was not a novelty Easter egg. He just knew she'd only like the milk chocolate half of it so he'd get to eat the dark chocolate half. He really winds me up. But that's another story...)

~ having her walk at a hefty clip about three miles down a platform to see me off on the train because we were still chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen when it came time to say goodbye... I thought that was such a sweet thing to do.

Thank you Sarah. I had a lovely day. I hope when you see me twist my sugar wrappers it won't be a deal-breaker because it's not something I can hide from you forever. Oh, and I forgot to say, what incredibly beautiful eyes you have. Apart from being warm and friendly, I have never, ever seen eyes that amazing colour before. And I like you a little bit more because of them. Is that very superficial?