Lines Between Virtual and Real

I'm one of those people who always has room for another friend. I'm not necessarily great at keeping in touch with you all the time or remembering your birthday or seeing you every week (or even year) but for me that makes no difference in the 'how I feel about you stakes'. I know it doesn't work this way for everyone. Some people like a few (very few) close friends. Some people walk closely together in terms of time and communication. People like this probably don't find friendships with people like me very easy. Others have lots of friends and still manage the great balance of contact and regular check ins.

 I just like to have lots of friends and pick up from wherever we left off and make a lot of noise and hopefully induce some laughter and encouragement along the way.

Since I have started blogging I have made a new circle of friends. For me these online/virtual relationships don't take the place of in-life relationships but they introduce me to people I'd like to have in my real life circles. If the opportunity arises I want to cross that blurry line from virtual to real (maybe it's a bit like the velveteen rabbit!!)

This weekend I have been away with some beautiful, talented, creative, smart, life-giving women and all bar one I would never have met (or started a friendship with) outside of blogging.

Although I'll never meet the authors of all the blogs I read and certainly though I enjoy reading many blogs there are definitely those who I think 'I'd have a great coffee date with you'.

I want to live my life accountab-ly and with integrity both online and in real life and when we talked this weekend one of the girls said that my virtual voice and my real voice married up for her. This made me very happy.

A weekend of talking, crafting and making the transition between the velveteen and the real was such a great time and I realise that these virtual relationships bring energy to me and challenge me to be the best of me.

Do you take time out with girl friends?
Do you believe in the transition between online and real?
Would you go away for a weekend with people you haven't 'met'?

Thanks so much to Leonie and Cat for their invitation and for all the work they did to make it a gorgeous weekend.
And to Laura and Sammy and Simoney who thought we were worth travelling to spend time with
and to Juliet and Deb who are part of what makes Christchurch bloggers a wonderful, exciting group of women (even the ones I haven't met in real life yet!!).

Some photos from the weekend and some I took on the plane this morning - there are advantages to early starts after all!! (Deb and Juliet took most of the photos so hopefully they will do their own post and there are a few on Cat's blog already).