The Problem with Internet Relationships

There is a big problem with the personal/interpersonal nature of the Internet. I have made some of my best friends through the Internet. People like Peggy and Steve and Ron and Olivia and all of the folks I met through CompuServe. Every single one of them has become a face to face friend; all of them are people whose friendship I value.

But there is another class of internet "friends," those people whose lives we follow by reading blogs, sometimes for many, many years. So many years that you come to think of them as friends, though you have never met them and perhaps haven't even exchanged more than half a dozen e-mails over all those years.

You get to feel like part of their lives, you know about their kids, their pets, their jobs, their political views, their likes and dislikes. Especially the people who update frequently. When people like that suddenly stop writing their blogs, it's like a death in the family. That's when you realize that you don't really know these people at all.

People like Marn (who rarely updates any more) or SecraTerry (who never updates any more) are sorely missed, even though we were never "real" friends (tho I did meet SecraTerri a few times and went riding bikes with her)

Today one of those "close" blog relationships came crashing down on me. This is a blog I have followed for more than five years. I doubt if the writer has ever read my blog, though we have exchanged a few e-mails over the years, mostly when I was writing to be supportive of something going wrong in the writer's life.

I thought that we were pretty much in agreement with political views, in fact, the writer is significantly more outspoken than I am.

So it was a shock to check out the latest blog entry and to see an ad in support of Prop 8 and a plea for a return to traditional marriage. This was totally diametrically opposed to everything I had ever thought about the blogger and I immediately sent off an e-mail:

I've agreed with just about everything you've ever published, but I have to admit I was taken aback to find a Yes on Prop 8 widget on your web site today.

Are you really opposed to gay marriage and in favor of writing discrimination into the constitution? I was very, very surprised and disappointed to discover that.

Almost by return e-mail, I received

WHOA. Where did you see that? There is no such widget on my site.

You should know better than to think I might support something like that, especially given the fact that I've written at length about my support for gay marriage in the past. I'm saddened that you've jumped straight past "Why don't I ask first?" to "very surprised and disappointed".

I apologized for jumping to conclusions, but sent a .jpg of the ad and explained that I'm inundated with "No on 8" messages having preconceived ideas about the blogger's views, seeing the ad just hit me like an electric shock.

The message I got in return was kind of a brush off and a reiteration of offense that I would even think that this ad would have been approved for the blog.

I'm still profoundly saddened that you jumped to a conclusion that you surely should have known better. And I think I'm done talking about this for today.

The blogger has made many references to having a quick temper and not always treating people kindly. I guess that in my haste to clarify the reason for the ad on the blog site, I have become one of those people who are persona non grata. I feel like I've been slapped in the face. I don't feel comfortable contacting this blogger again, though I will, of course, continue to stay connected to the story of the family life, because I just care too much not to continue to follow it.

But it saddens me that in sticking up for gay marriage and the California proposition, I somehow seem to have become the bad guy.

What would YOU think if you saw this on someone's blog?