The first time I went to meet Buffy fans face to face, I flew to London. My family thought I was out of my mind. It all turned out well, though.

Now, hush!

Your secret's safe with me.

Meeting someone in the supermarket is still meeting someone, and that's why it's somehow acceptable

And I don't understand how people can say that meeting someone online is any more dangerous than meeting someone in person. You can see if they really are a 30-ish male vs. whatever someone says they are online, but other than that? Odds are just as good that they're an ax murderer. Or trades in white slavery.

I'm surprised at how little my friends and family twitched at the idea of me moving west not yet knowing which intermet person I was going to stay with.

[NOTE: if you 'fuffle over this, I KEEL YOU!!!]

'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle 'fuffle

craxy! craxy!

I'm surprised at how little my friends and family twitched at the idea of me moving west not yet knowing which intermet person I was going to stay with.

Would they have reacted differently (do you think) if you had moved in order to live with intermet people, rather than staying with intermet people as part of your move? Am I even making sense?

Would they have reacted differently (do you think) if you had moved in order to live with intermet people, rather than staying with intermet people as part of your move?

I'm not sure. I ended up on Allyson's floor for three months. Always temporary, but I'm sure if she was going to kill me, she'd not have waited that long.

reassure her family that she wasn't headed off to meet with mass murderers, who are the same people who raised a significant amount of money for someone they'd never "met"?

To be honest, there are extremely few people who know that the trip was a present from the strangers-on-the-internet-and-especially-from-that-man-whose-name-is-on-tv. My parents still don't know, for example - I still, to this day, have no idea how to tell them that in a way that will make them understand. So only a handful of very close friends know this (and, well, the whole internet, but let's not get into that).

I think what made the difference for my mom was the way I managed to personify the "strangers on the internet". For example, the invitation to JZ and Hec's wedding, in which there was a most generous promise that if I had come, they would have managed to supply a kosher meal at the wedding and so forth. Proving to my mom that even though those people were stangers to me, in a way, there were ways in which I was not a stranger to them, that they knew things about me and cared. To my dad, the only thing that made a difference was that I came back in one piece.

The idea that there are ways to make friends, and some are right and some are wrong -- and that the way is more important than the friend. It's still a person, right?

He became hung up on this, and then I unhung him. Ten years from now this conversation won't be necessary, because "this" will be really and truly in the mainstream.

I apologize for being defensive, but I felt like I was being called out for what many others have had to go through, with the added spice of the DF is pitiful and controlling for zest.

Edit: Nilly, I apologize for mis-characterising the situation.

So only a handful of very close friends know this (and, well, the whole internet, but let's not get into that).

Isn't that such a weird concept? I mean...the things my mother doesn't know about me. I fear the day she becomes Internet-savvy.