Who's your longest-standing internet friend?

Connonym and I have been talking almost exclusively via IM and the odd phone call for... gah, must be six or seven years.



The obvious advantage is the odds of either of us getting pregnant are negligible.

Simply because I don't speak with most of my former usenet pals.

Oh, those were the days. Sigh. Unleashed. w00t!

give her my regards next time you speak to her, will you?

:thumbsup:

He doesn't post here anymore. We became very good friends for a very long time. We've since drifted just a bit, but we are still in touch. I know what he is doing, and he knows what I'm doing. I'd say we've known each other since 2001, when he first started posting on DU. We've met 3 or 4 times in person so I guess that makes us offline friends too :)

Haven't seen you in a while! :hi:

you must be insane because nobody else can stand me for that long :-P

You should also know the main reason I've stuck around is my neurotic obsession with microscopic chances of having sex. :P

Either the old AOL chat board ones, from way back when my 14.4 modem was fast, (I eventually lost touch with all of them, even the cute one I met IRL) or the ones from the parenting message board I used to frequent (one day I simply had enough of their drama and made a clean break.)

in a book chat that chatted about almost everything but books.

I also met Reyd Reid Reed and Grasswire in the same ch... no, I met Grasswire before that, in AOL's old ACLU-sponsored Free Speech Zone. 'T'was she who lured me here.

So, blame her. :P

Oh gee. I'm not sure.
A couple of my friends from my IRC days, I guess, are the only ones I still talk to.

We've IM'd each other and talked on the phone off and on for the past 2-1/2 years.

:hug:

:hi:

Since we met online back in 1996

Me and him go way back.

We started chatting six or seven years ago, as well. Crazy.

I married him :)

aA

but then we'd have to have the sex and it would ruin everything so it's just as well that we've never actually met

So how long ago was that, about 12 years ago?

:evilgrin:

you wouldn't know him because he exists only in my mind and rides on the electricity highway when he feels like it.

ah, Usenet.

the old tin newsreaders.

Of course, she is not across country anymore, but in the same house with me. Married for almost 9 years.

We still send each other email all the time.

Many happy flamewars with Jim Goad and others on alt.punk

some epic ones.

ah, the good old days.

Ran into her on a dial-up bbs here in about 1994, then she told me about a shell bulletin board at the UW where I promptly gained a lot more friends. Most of these people are now real-life friends of longstanding.

That friendship with Julie was a conduit to a majority of the real life friends I have now, in fact, very few of whom I interact with via the Internet.

Several friends from the University message boards on the VAX Cluster. :)

Did the VAX run VMS?

I wouldn't say I'm hardcore. I only used the VAX for messageboards and e-mail. :)

Then these little PC LANs started to creep in and fuck things up for everybody.

You're in telecom; you're hardcore.

Found a group of D&D players back in September of 1998 on a now defunct forum called WebRPG (it may have morphed into something new since I last checked, however)

We hit it off well and had a great D&D campaign that went from that time in '98 through nearly the end of '99.

Since then, I've become a pretty good friend with the guy that was the DM of the group - who has since gone from a slightly physically challenged (29 or 30 years old at the time, but walked with a cane) to somebody that is now bedridden and can only sit up with assistance for brief periods.

My ex dragged me onto a text-based RPG based on A Bug's Life back in the late 90s, and I still talk to people from there. I rarely talk to the two girls who I'm still in contact with who were already there when I got there, so I don't know if I can count them. The next two that came along were the two guys who I'm still in contact with, and I don't remember which one got there first. But one is on my livejournal friends list, and the other I email every now and then.

Although through him I still keep tabs with one of the girls because those two ended up meeting in real life and getting married. :) And the other girl occasionally pops up on livejournal.

But for the most part, I don't "make friends" online. I just...can't get into using the Internet for that.

would this be someone you've "met" online but never have met IRL? :hi:

I met them at BestandWorst.com, a site packed with trolley little morons but I'm glad I met them there!
In 1999 I made friends on Yahoo chat in the books & lit. room. I introduced a couple of them long distance, somehow I'm to blame for their blind date. Then they ended up getting married and saying I was the cause of it all :wow: I don't keep in touch with them now but I did go to their wedding in LA.

I suck at remembering.

I had some usenet and listserv friends in college ('93-'97), but haven't kept up with them.

and because we lived in different states, we communicated exclusively by IM for about three years before I finally saw him again in person. :D We ended up dating for a while, but the distance thing didn't work out. We're still on really good terms, though, and we continue to stay in touch primarily via IM. :hi:

ten years. Mock is a member of DU and he posts sometimes, I met him in Excite.

And a few others I met at that time.

I don't think Parent Soup still exists. It ended up being absorbed by ivillage somewhere along the way. We're not close, but our 9 year olds go to school together (they were babies when we first met, but we initially met online).

As far as someone I'm still friendly with only online or by phone that I've never met, probably ForrestGump here on DU, and that's been 4& 1/2 years. He hasn't been around on DU for a few months, but we still say hi from time to time. Amaya and I are real life friends that I initially just knew from DU. As is my husband (Finnfan).

We met via Yahoo chat.

We met on Prodigy. We have gotten together in person a few times -- he's from the Milwaukee area but doesn't live here anymore.

As for those I haven't met...the ones I'm in touch with only go back a few years, and are generally from here.

or if they were to start with :P

Probably a couple of DU'ers are...

really no experience with online communities before or since

not interested in other online communities before or since

:shrug:

We've both been through an awful lot over the years. We don't talk often but we don't lose touch for long periods, either.

This is for him: :)

He's from Scotland and as I mentioned completely insane. We met on a band's message board almost 7 (!! :o) years ago.

Will Pitt

are friends I've had for well over 8 years. I met ThinkBlue1966 there, once upon a time.

:hug: :loveya:

Either that or my girlfriend.