On digital relationships

This is my entry for February’s IndieWeb carnival. This month is hosted by yours truly and I’d love to have you as part of this initiative.

Digital relationships are a fascinating concept. The idea that a relationship with someone else can be lived, consumed, and enjoyed entirely inside the digital space is something we probably take for granted but it’s such a unique and distinctive feature of this time we live in.

If you’re like me, you probably met and interacted with more people in the digital world than in real life. And I’m not saying this because I’m an introvert, I don’t think I am. I’m saying this simply because it’s the result of the life I live.

Daily I receive emails or messages from people I don’t know and will never meet “in real life”. And daily I send back messages to these people sharing thoughts, opinions, bits of my life. That’s just what my life is these days and, to be honest with you, I find it incredibly rewarding at a personal level.

But my life hasn’t always been like that. I’m technically a child of the 80s—juuuuust barely—but I grew up in the 90s. The internet wasn’t part of my life and the same can be said for most of the technology we take for granted nowadays. I had a cellphone—not a smartphone—and SMS was how we communicated. But SMS was such a limited and costly way to interact that using it to have digital relationships was not an option. And you had to have someone’s number first.

My first experience with a digital relationship happened on a forum. Do you remember those? I love forums. They’re such a neat way to organize an online community. I’m even considering setting up one myself! Anyway, I remember browsing and posting on hwupgrade.it/forum/ in the early 2000s and becoming friends with an Italian girl. We talked PS1 games and it was awesome. I never met her, never seen a picture of her, never even cared about asking for one. The only thing we exchanged were names and that was it.

That was just the first in a long series of fun digital relationships. I met people playing the original COD MW2, back in 2009, I connected with strangers during the #followfriday days of early Twitter, and I exchanged countless emails with designers and developers during my years curating the—now defunct—thegallery.io.

With most of the people I consider friends I have digital relationships. I met Rob in person once in my life. We’ve known each other since I think 2012 and I hear from him pretty much daily. The same is true for Carl. We met in person exactly once and I hear from him daily. Mike connected with me via email in 2015 and we’re still friends to this day. We never met in person and that’s absolutely fine.

Digital relationships are powerful. Some people discard them because they think they’re not at the same level as “real relationships” but I disagree. Digital relationships are their own thing. They have their own rules, and their own ways to be unique. And they can be as important as any other relationship.

The current internet can be a miserable place, I know. Social media can be a cesspool, people are mean, and there are weirdos everywhere. It sucks. I’m not going to pretend everything is wonderful out there. But I still have hope. I do because of the countless lovely exchanges I had via email with people like you.

You, are a wonderful person. I don’t have any reason to think otherwise. And I’m sure there are others like you out there. Curious people, kind people, generous people. People who like to share, to engage honestly.

Digital relationships are powerful but don’t take my word for it. Try for yourself. Next time you stumble on a personal site you find interesting, try to connect with the person behind that site. Write an email, say hi, send them some love. You won’t regret it.

You have time until March 1st to publish something on the topic of “Digital Relationships” and be part of the IndieWeb Carnival. Just make sure to send me an email with the link if you want to be included in the roundup post.