An Unusual Friendship | Clare

Almost a decade ago, I was introduced to the world of blogging.

Blogging was nothing like the way it is today. It wasn’t about getting famous, it wasn’t about posing in the latest fashion or reviewing the latest of anything. It was about life: people shared their lives, their experiences, their innermost thoughts and found like-minded people who did the same. We shared each others highs and lows, laughed at each others funny experiences and got giddy over the kilig moments.

It was during my early years of blogging that I found myself gravitating towards certain bloggers who I eventually became friends with online. I know that people usually regard online friendships with a certain degree of skepticism but it is what it is. It’s hard for people who are not in the same situation to understand, but despite the fact that we hardly ever (or even never) saw each other, we all still consider each other as good friends.

Considering that I had moved to the province from the city and had all but lost touch of the friends I used to have, I cherished the friendship that these bloggers have given me. While it may have been and continues to be generally a virtual friendship (even if I have seen most of them in person at least once), I can say that these people know about me more than the people that I used to call friends. I’m grateful for these people and I am honored that they chose to share their lives with me.

Last week I got to spend some time with these friends. Two of them were people I was going to meet face to face for the first time. One was someone I haven’t seen in nine years, another one I haven’t seen in seven years and another I saw last year.

It was wonderful catching up with everyone and talking about the things that we couldn’t talk about online for all the world to see. It’s interesting that while almost everyone has stopped blogging, we’ve haven’t lost touch with what we’ve all been up to (thank you Twitter).

It’s nice to see how everyone is up close and personal and amazing to find out that in one way or another, we would have all met through different circumstances because we found out that we have common friends. I guess in a way, this was a friendship that was meant to be even without blogging (although I am still grateful for it). Still, it’s an interesting mix considering that we’re all from different parts of the country (and OUT of the country, for that matter).

I had so much fun, we were all talking about maybe doing it a quarterly thing (for the ones who are in the country anyway) and you know what? I’d love that. I hope we can make that happen.

There are still some other bloggers that I have yet to meet in person that I’d love to see, but I’m glad that I’m off to a good start. Hopefully I can get to meet some of the other bloggers one day (paging Pickiest Eater).

I had a wonderful time ladies…until next time!