I have been writing online in some form for about five and a half years now. In that time, I have made several friends that I only know online — that I’ve not actually met in person. While that may be odd, consider how quickly and easily you can get to know someone through their writing online. Friendships between bloggers who see commonalities in each other can form much faster than offline friendships. Along the way, some of my online friends have decided (for various reasons) not to write anymore. Unfortunately, when they did so, they also dropped out of my life. Over time, their contact information changed or they never responded to my check-ins, or perhaps I lost their contact information. It makes me sad that my friendships with these writers ended not because one or the other of us was angry at the other or felt slighted or even felt the friendship had run its course (at least, I didn’t). It is my hope that some of my old friends might see this post and let me know how they’re doing — perhaps even where they are writing now so I can catch up.

Goewin used to write at Diaryland as Goewin and at Blogger’s Blogspot as bluemoonegg. As far as I know, she isn’t online. It has been some time since I received a comment from her. I don’t think I have her e-mail address anymore, either. She is the only online friend I’ve had that I actually made tentative plans to meet in real life, though it didn’t work out. She had family in the town where I used to teach.

Vickie used to write at Magnolia Glen. At first, she had her own .org domain, then she moved to Blogspot. A quick Google search yielded no results for either blog.

Trinity63 was very supportive of me at a time when I needed it, then she had some fairly heinous online troubles and absented herself from her Diaryland diary for good. I miss her.

Gingerbug wrote at Diaryland also. She participated in Diaryland Survivor and was raked over the coals there and on a forum owned by another Diarylander. She had quite an eye for design, and she was such an interesting person. She had some really creative ideas, too.

On the other hand, some friends I made early on have maintained contact in some form or continued writing online. Dana and Vanessa are such friends. This might creep them out, but I’ll go ahead and say that they may be two of my best friends. They know a lot about me, and they take the time to keep up with me. I’m not saying the others I mentioned didn’t do these things. It’s just that for whatever reason, we gradually lost touch. I wish we hadn’t!