"You’ve Never Even Met Them"

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Some of the people who have been there for me the most are people I’ve never actually met.

Which sounds kind of insane when you really think about it.

They’ve never sat across from me at a table. They’ve never hugged me. They’ve never shown up at my house with coffee because I was having a shitty day. They’ve never physically been there for any of the big moments in my life.

And yet somehow, some of them know me better than people I’ve known in real life for years.

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People are so weird about online friendships too.

“You’ve never even met them!”

Okay? And?

Why does meeting someone in person suddenly make the friendship more real?

I’ve had people physically beside me who didn’t notice I was struggling. I’ve had friendships with people I knew for half my life completely fall apart. People I grew up with. People who knew my family, celebrated birthdays with me, knew all the stupid inside jokes and embarrassing stories.

We had all of the things that supposedly make a friendship “real.”

And we still became strangers.

Meanwhile, someone who lives hundreds or thousands of kilometres away can notice something is wrong because I’m texting differently.

That’s actually kind of wild.

Online friends just learn you in a different way.

They know what you sound like when you’re excited because suddenly you’re sending six messages in a row. They know when “lol” means I’m actually laughing and when it means I have absolutely nothing else to say to that.

They know which memes are going to get immediately sent back with “FUCK OFF 😂.”

They remember some random thing you mentioned months ago that you don’t even remember telling them.

And they learn your silences too.

There are people who can tell the difference between my actual “I’m fine” and the “I’m fine” that very obviously means I am one slightly concerned question away from unloading three weeks worth of problems.

You don’t have to physically sit beside someone to learn them.

Sometimes you’re sitting in a Discord call at 1 a.m. doing completely separate things and barely even talking.

Sometimes someone stays awake because they know you’re driving home and they want the “I’m home” text before they go to bed.

Sometimes you have a horrible day and there’s a message waiting from somebody who somehow knew you needed to laugh.

That counts.

I think people spend so much time talking about how the internet has disconnected us that they forget how many people it has connected who never would have found each other otherwise.

Some of my friends live in completely different cities, provinces, even countries.

There is absolutely no reason our lives should have crossed.

We just happened to exist in the same weird corner of the internet at the same time and went, “yeah, you. I like you.”

And somehow years later they’re still here.

Not always constantly either.

That’s something I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older.

I used to think friendship meant talking all the time. If we stopped messaging every day or weeks went by without talking, part of me would immediately assume we were drifting apart.

Now?

Life is fucking busy.

People get jobs. Relationships. Families. Hobbies. Problems. Entire lives that don’t involve keeping everyone updated every day.

Sometimes someone who used to know every tiny detail of your life becomes someone you talk to once every few weeks.

Sometimes it’s months.

And there are certain friendships where none of that seems to matter.

You eventually send them something and it’s immediately:

“ANYWAY so here is six months of lore.”

And you’re right back where you were.

No weird guilt trip.

No “wow, nice of you to finally remember I exist.”

No tally showing who texted who last.

Just… hi. Come sit down. Tell me everything.

I fucking love friendships like that.

There’s something really comforting about knowing that somebody can disappear into their own life for a while, you can disappear into yours, and neither of you takes it personally.

You just keep finding each other again.

Especially because I’ve had friendships closer to home that didn’t survive nearly as much.

That part still stings a little, I think.

There are people I genuinely thought would be in my life forever simply because they had already been there for so long.

You assume history means permanence.

Apparently it doesn’t.

And then somehow these friendships that started with usernames and profile pictures just keep going.

Maybe we don’t talk everyday anymore.

Maybe we’ve both changed approximately seventeen personalities since we met.

Maybe there are entire chapters of each other’s lives we only know through the occasional catch-up conversation.

But I’ve never wondered if I’m still allowed to come back.

That means a lot to me.

Because online friendships don’t really exist by accident.

We aren’t friends because we work together and see each other five days a week.

We aren’t friends because we live ten minutes apart.

We can’t just bump into each other at the grocery store or decide to grab coffee after work.

You actually have to make the effort to stay in somebody’s life when there are hundreds or thousands of kilometres between you.

You have to send the message.

Make the call.

Open Discord.

Remember the birthday.

Check that they got home.

Send them the stupid TikTok that made you think of them.

And apparently all those tiny things add up.

I do hope I get to meet some of these people someday.

Although I already know the first few minutes are going to be fucking weird.

Because imagine knowing somebody’s entire relationship history, their family drama, what food they order when they’re sad, their favourite songs, every person they’ve hated since 2017 and exactly what their voice sounds like when they’re about to say something completely unhinged…

…and then suddenly realizing you have no idea how tall they are.

Like excuse me???

You’re a PERSON?

You have LEGS?

I think after the initial “holy shit you’re actually real” moment though, it would probably feel pretty normal.

Because meeting them wouldn’t be the beginning of the friendship.

That happened years ago.

The hug would be new.

Sitting beside them would be new.

Actually being able to hand them a coffee instead of sending a photo of one would be new.

But knowing them wouldn’t be.

And I think that’s the part people miss when they say online friendship isn’t the same as “real” friendship.

Of course it isn’t the same.

That doesn’t make it less real.

Friendship isn’t measured by how many kilometres are between you.

It’s who keeps showing up.

Who remembers things.

Who checks on you.

Who makes you laugh when your day has been absolute garbage.

Who can disappear for six months and somehow still make it feel completely normal when they wander back into your life.

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Some of the safest people I’ve ever known started as usernames on a screen.

And there’s one person especially who has somehow kept finding their way back into my life through different versions of both of us, different relationships, different chaos and all the stretches where life just kind of… happened.

You know who you are.

Thank you for never making me feel like I had to knock before coming back in.

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Some friendships don’t disappear when life gets quiet. You just keep finding your way back to each other.

Talk soon, Kass ☕🌿