So apparently y'all are not real.

[Akasa]

I kinda get this from my family, but I get the "You're addicted to the internet" angle. After all if I weren't addicted to the internet I'd have lots of RL friends and be doing RL things with them instead of doing things on the internet.

[Victory Sabre]

All I want is to be real.

[Frantic Freddie]

I'm one of the most gregarious people I know,RL or OL

The 'net has turned out,for me,to be just another place to meet people & I've been fortunate to meet a few people from the forum I've been on the last 9 years.Some have stayed at our house,went to Arizona for a guy's wedding (they came to our party last year) & we've been to Colorado twice,1st time to meet a guy (we have a beautiful wood sculpture from him) & 2nd time to stay at his cabin with him & his daughter.Several other people have standing invites to be our houseguests.

I have friends in other countries,I've learned a lot about Australia & the UK that I didn't know due to my OL friends.

I'm always open to meetin' new people,I've found I can always learn something or just enjoy their company,even if it is just words on a monitor

[BookstoreEscapee]

All I want is to be real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xlMnrd54V8

[Mytical]

Well, that just confirms what I've always said. I am a figment of somebody's imagination, and boy do they have a weird imagination.

[Marmalady]

Well, that just confirms what I've always said. I am a figment of somebody's imagination, and boy do they have a weird imagination.

And you know what I told you when you said that to me, don't you?

[AccountingDrone]

I love my internet friends, I have them all over the world. Some I have met, some I have only vid chatted with, some only voice chatted with, and some only chatted with in type. I have gone and spent a month in Germany with one friend, we had a blast. Last summer we had a friend from Romania join us on our banzai tour of Germany and Holland, and next summer we are renting a flat for a week in Amsterdam, and we are having a few friends drop by to have a nice social few days. I have friends as far away as Perth, Christchurch, Japan, Afghanistan, Russia, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Germany, Britain, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finnland.

I *love* the internet ... it took me from letter writing to being able to videochat and play games online with friends.

[draggar]

Well, that just confirms what I've always said. I am a figment of somebody's imagination, and boy do they have a weird imagination.

You have no idea how true that is.

[RootedPhoenix]

Well, that just confirms what I've always said. I am a figment of somebody's imagination, and boy do they have a weird imagination.

Ooh! Guess that makes me the same! I wonder if that same someone can imagine me with less swelling and more money?

[CaroPhoenix]

If everyone is trying to imagine what I look like, could you please imagine me being 120 pounds, with long, flowing, curly brown hair, big brown eyes, a smaller nose, and ummm .... lots and lots and lots of money with half-naked men catering to my every need?

[JoitheArtist]

Does this mean NASA is a figment of my imagination? Because I've chatted with several of their accounts on Twitter and Facebook...and got invited to a shuttle launch...with hundreds of other figments of the imagination....Though, to be fair, there was a rubber chicken there with a flight suit. So I can see how someone would think that was not real.

I think my family got the internet right around 1996--VERY early for our little rural Texas town. The first time I got onto a chat room, I met a guy from Australia. That was 15 years ago, and we are STILL friends (in fact, he posted on my Facebook wall as I was typing this). I was the shy kid, the one who dressed weird, preferred books to people, and never spoke up much (and when I did it was misunderstood or ignored). But when I got online...I found other people who liked the same "weird" things that I did: Star Wars, Narnia, Dune, Blade Runner, LotR, etc. I had NEVER known anyone else who liked those things. When I came out to California, I knew that the sorts of people I'd met online were the sorts of people I wanted to be friends with off-line, too. So in a weird way, the internet helped me learn how to make friends!

In fact, I'm much more social offline now than I was before, because my internet friends have given me hope that maybe not EVERYthing I say is stupid and maybe some people might be ok with me talking to them.

[taurinejunkie]

Of course we're not real, why else do we refer to ourselves with i?

*rimshot*

Can't believe this went unnoticed for so long.

Also, my parents have immense distrust for "them internets people", who they consider to be very real and very dangerous.

[draggar]

I think my family got the internet right around 1996--VERY early for our little rural Texas town.

I started in 1993 in college and abused their connection until I got AOHell around 1995 or 1996.

I wish I kept in touch with the people I knew then, some were really cool people. *sigh*

[zombiequeen]

And I was just starting to think I was a person again.
This bothers me personally because that's how I maintain relationships with people, and how I run my business, purely online.
If those people aren't real, then what exactly keeps purchasing plushies from me and for what purpose? I don't think robots cuddle....are they sentient lizards in need of pillows?

[RootedPhoenix]

Some of my extended family must believe that some of the internet is very dangerous. They had to meet a girl first before allowing her to meet up with me all by myself. I've spoken with her on and off for 12 years. I'd think I'd have noticed if she were an axe murderer by now!

The kicker? I've had the Internet in my house (in one form or another) since about 1995! (We really had it before, but I don't remember making much use of it.) They haven't had it that long at all. And yet I'm the one who doesn't know what I'm doing.