I discovered the internet in the late 1990’s.  At the beginning, I was rather leary of relationships formed online, because I never believed that you could actually know a person when you can’t even see him or her!  And of course, who hasn’t heard of penpals, phone pals and other “virtual friends” and how some of these turned out to be scammers?  How are online friends going to be any different?

I was wrong.

Not only did I find friends online, my network became larger.  I started joining online discussion forums like Pinoyexchange.  I was even made a moderator.  That’s when I had all the extra time since I was still single.  I got to know some people, most notably the mod staff and admin of the forum. 

Then wedding planning took over.  I joined the yahoogroups of weddingsatwork.com .  It was a good move.  Not only did it help me with planning with wedding and looking for the best suppliers, it also introduced me to several girls (you know who you are, mwah!) who became close to me in the course of our wedding preps.  I often wonder how different life might have been if I haven’t signed up for that yahoogroups.  And now that we’re mommies, we still give each other support and encouragement in our married life.

Then social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook etc. came along. This has made a large impact on friendships in general and keeping in touch.

Case in point, I was looking for a certain friend for a long time.  I was thinking that I would like her to be my baby’s godmother.  Lo and behold, I saw her on facebook!

So, I love how the internet has made friendships the way it is now.  I actually found high school, college and med school classmates, long long relatives and friends online.  Keeping in touch has never been as easy.  We can now keep track of each others’ lives.

Not only that, despite being a harried mommy who happens to have a busy timetable, I still manage to make new friends.  It would not have been possible if there were no such thing as the internet!

Mabuhay ang internet!  And thank you to facebook, plurk, twitter, yahoogroups and even plain old email who makes us all closer together!

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This is my contribution to week 7 of Team Carnival:  Online Friendships, hosted by Didi of The Candishhh Tales.

Photo: “Friendster or Foe” by Chris Pirillo, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

Tags: facebook, friends, friendster, internet, online friendship, plurk, twitter