E-Friends

I spent most of last week traveling to attend a biker get-together ^[1]. 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 ^[2]. More specifically, of taking a stock Sportster and chopping ^[3] 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.