I spent most of last week traveling to attend a biker get-together. Nothing unusual in that, except that this group, and by extension the meet itself, was the product of relationships developed online.

The hours I spent on the road gave me, as it always does, a lot of time to ponder my belly button. The topic that got the most mileage was the changing nature of friendships in my life.

As a military brat and then a military man, I spent a lot of my formative years — those before I hit 30 anyway — traveling from one home to the next. Rarely did we spend more than a few years in any one place, moving from state to state, country to country as assignments changed. This gypsy lifestyle had a profound effect on me; on my ability to develop friendships; to nurture relationships and even on the way I interact with people casually.

I found it easier to be a loner than to deal with the constant goodbyes. I didn’t have any lasting friendships in school and didn’t develop any of those life-long military-buddy relationships that are the staple of almost every military movie since the invention of film. Even my relationships with women were more ephemeral than I wanted, though I am not sure I can pawn that particular quirk off solely on my wandering road.

To this day, I do not have friends at work or in my neighborhood. I have a lot of acquaintances and even some buddies, but no friends. Some habits are harder to break than others.

The event I attended last week was the creation of a bunch of bike guys who are all devotees of Harley Davidson Sportsters. More specifically, of taking a stock Sportster and chopping anything factory made off of the motorcycle, then recreating that motorcycle in their own image. For anyone not involved in the group, it would appear to be nothing more than a ‘car club’ for vehicles with half the wheels. A harmless hobby at most.

I initially ‘met’ these folks on an internet message board and that progressed to a face-to-face meeting on neutral ground. More message board discussions and emails exchanged, followed by another get-together. It was a courtship in everything but name.

As we spent more time together over the last couple of years, both on and off line, I came to the realization that these people mattered to me. Their joys and pains, their hopes and dreams and even their opinion of me were important in a way I couldn’t define. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder what one or another of them are up to and rarely does a week go by that we do not at least exchange messages on the net.

It may sound strange to those of you who are extroverts and have a wide circle of friends, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had always taken a perverse pride in that whole loner mentality, a defense mechanism I am sure. Now that whole ‘loner’ attitude is metamorphosing into something new; something a little scary; something pretty damn cool.

Despite being a self-proclaimed geek, I find it a little disconcerting that it took an impersonal tool like the internet to bring this socially-inept, introverted redneck out of his shell.

I guess the net is more than blogs and porn after all.

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David "Preacher" Slocum

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