Someone oughtta write a book disputing this.

Most people -- not "most people online" or "most people in fandom," but most people -- do not form the kind of LD relationships this particular community has. Many people certainly do. But there are more who don't. Allyson, you've written a book explaining how relationships form on the net. If it was common, you wouldn't need to explain it.

All relationships are long distance.

Wait. In a minute, I will get really depressing.

What? Like existentially? You can never know another person and shit?

Wow, that was really frustrating. I'm doing an online course. This morning the website went down - when it finally came up again, the NEXT PAGE was just an instruction to read a chapter of one of the textbooks. I could have been doing that while I couldn't access the website. Argh!

If it was common, you wouldn't need to explain it.

Well, there's money to be made telling people what they already know, but might not have thought about properly.

Lots of it.

I do agree with Allyson's point that LD interaction isn't new and isn't unrewarding--the fact that she can say that better than I do is not unrelated to why she's the one with the book deal.

Huh. There's a "large hail" warning for NY.

What? Like existentially? You can never know another person ...

Sure. Turn me into a freshman ...

Ok. Yes, like existentially. Crap. All the big thinkers have been here. Even the French big thinkers.

Now, that is depressing.

Yeah but you are saying it more entertainingly.

Just had a very lovely brunch with lots of cool Buffistas and others.

No one ate any popsicles though.

Most people -- not "most people online" or "most people in fandom," but most people -- do not form the kind of LD relationships this particular community has.

I'm disputing the chicken soup bullshit, because the person is stating that one can't forge those kinds of relationships online, and well, here we are. I'd send you chicken soup, Strega. In fact, today I saw a pirate flag lunchbox and thought, "I'll have to pick that up for Strega," because that's chicken soup, Strega style.

As for most people, or most people online, and this particular community, I can hand you anecdotal evidence from every community I've seen: Farscape, Firefly, The Bronze, here, The Well, all have resulted in meetups, hook ups, face-to-face friendships. Daily Kos just did it as well.

My hypothesis is that any community that has been online for 6 months or more will result in meatspace friendships among some members. But that's just a hypothesis, and until I get a grant from some crazy rich person, I'll not have any empirical evidence to back me.