Have you ever met someone in real life that you knew on the internet first?

Not yet, but I hope to some day.

not yet. I think it would be cool though.

I have a friend who met a girl online about 5 years ago. We live in NJ she lives in GA. Well after a while they started dating long distance and all, and then during one of their breaks from school she came up to visit. They’ve been going out since(i think they are going on two years now).

As far as me meeting someone ive known on the internet first? No, i havent, but id love to go to a fluther convention so i could meet everyone.

No, though I have some international Internet friends I have known for more than two years.

Sure, I’ve met a few friends from all around the world that I knew online first.

veeeeeeeeery interesting…
Fluther convention!

Yes, I met my best friend online before we met up in real life. At the time, he was a friend of a friend and we just started chatting over msn. We met up and eventually became best friends. He lives in another state now so at least we’ve had a lot of practice catching up online.

P.S I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again, I would LOVE a Fluther convention :D You just have to give me enough notice to save up for the flights.

Yes, I am shameless about turning internet friends into real life friends. If someone is worth my time on the internet, s/he is worth my time in person. Unless geography makes it prohibitively difficult I am all for hanging out.

I think it’s really fascinating the way you just click with some people in a way you don’t with others, and that is really hard to predict through talking online. I can’t explain it (which naturally makes me uncomfortable) but it would be an interesting thing to study for sure.

And I have never regretted meeting anyone in person. Some I got along with better than others but I definitely have never had anything creepy or unpleasant happen.

Yes, I met a friend online, we started emailing one another, then after about 8–9 month, we finally met and got along great. We were from the opposite sides of the country, and we both made a point to go visit each other in our hometowns. It was a really unique experience.

I can think of 3 instances where I met someone and had a conversation (or more). I first got on the internet in 1991 before the www, it was mostly bulletin boards, but I discovered IRC (the first chat rooms). A high school friend who had gone to a different college told me about a freenet site in Cleveland, so I logged on there. I lived in northern Minnesota, and met a young woman my age who was a local on the freenet (lived in Cleveland). We hit it off and agreed if we lived closer we’d probably become more than friends. Eventually she looked up my phone # and called me and we really hit it off then. We agreed we should meet some day, so a few months later I drove out to Cleveland, we had a whirlwind 3 week romance, and by the time I left I realized she was to quote Mike Meyers from Wayne’s World a psycho hose beast. And that was the end of that, otherwise if she’d been sane I might have actually moved there instead of where I live now.

Before I made that trip however, I met a few people who also logged onto the college computers and used our internal bulletin board systems. That more happened like I’d post something and someone else would post something, and it was a back and forth, kind of like here sometimes. Then someone who was friends with me would tell me, oh, you know that person you were chatting with on that BBS, I know who that is, I’ll introduce you. So I met about 3 or 4 people that way.

Then when I first moved from my small northern Minnesotan town to the large urban city in southern Minnesota, I was chatting on some local boards, and I met this person with whom I chatted. We were going to see the same concert (the Smithereens), and she and I hooked up at the concert and had a conversation.

None of these people is still in my life.

Other than that, I’ve met dozens of people I originally met when buying or selling things on Craig’s List, but rarely have I spent more than 5 minutes with them.

Do BBSs count? I became friends with a girl on a local BBS (phone-to-phone networking, back when “the internet” mostly meant a shell account, usenet and gopher), and then when we met in person, we ended up dating for over a year.

Now that I think of it, pretty much everybody who’s ever used an online dating service “knew” (in some sense) the people they dated online before they met them in real life..

So that gets me thinking, what does it mean to “know” somebody online, exactly, versus “knowing” them in person? Online you get a sort of filtered version of them, but then again, depending on the circumstances, I suppose you do in person, too..

I’ve not met anyone in real life after internet contact, nor am I aware that I’ve ever had internet contact with someone I already knew (which is probably the more curious issue)

But if anyone’s up for hosting a dinner, and it’s close by – I’ll show up!

yeah a couple people actually.. i know its sad Dx hah

I’ve met people on couchsurfing.com when I traveled (which is a great site for meeting locals) and also have an acquaintance who gave me a ride off of craigslist.org! Maybe others too – but those ones stand out.

I also agree with nikipedia about clicking with people. I find that in real life you know right away if you have a connection with someone, but may not have anything in common. On the internet you know you have stuff in common, but don’t know if you have a connection.

I’ll be happy to host a dinner party…..anyone want to come to North Carolina? :)

No, I’ve never met anyone online and then in person. But I’ve only done played a couple of online games and spent time on Fluther.

@syz – I’ll be in Charlotte for Thanksgiving week. Should I just bring the whole family over that Thursday? : P

Yes, plenty. They’re people, rather like the people you meet in other ways, except you haven’t met them in person yet, and your imagination of the things you didn’t know from the Internet contact, will tend to be randomly different from how your imagination filled them in. I tend to approach meeting people in person as meeting a second person, sort of.

I knew my (now) husband through an email group before I met him in real life. We finally met at a get-together of the people from the list, and I took one look at him and said, “I want THAT ONE!” :D

Hey Dale – I used to go by “Challenge” on IRC in 1991–1995. I usually haunted #wicca, #christian, and #gblf. I wonder if I knew you then?

I’ve met a few people that I had originally met in World of Warcraft. They were mostly pleasant, and only a few times was it weird (because we had nothing in common other than WoW).

Also, I’ve gone on a few dates with people I met through internet dating websites. Those were mostly all awkward—I didn’t really enjoy that much.

I went to FOWA London last week, and meeting and chatting with so many people that I’ve previously only known from their blogs, podcasts or chatting to by email was really amazing. I’ve got a bunch of work out of it too. It’s the first web conference I’ve ever been to, and I’m absolutely getting a pass again next year.

Plus Facebook paid for £20k’s worth of beer at the after party.

i’ve met many good friends from vampirefreaks.com I used the site to promote the shows I did. my daughter also met a few bf’s on there, who turned out to be pretty cool.

Yes I have. I met up with four women on a trip to New York, it was great! I have had lunch with one other friend. All of these people were exactly who and what I expected them to be. Mind you, I was very careful about who I met and where I met them.

No, but there are quite a few people on Fluther I’d love to meet. Maybe someday we’ll actually have that convention!

Yes yes yes, all have been good experiences, one specially jejeje

I’d love to meet some of my fellow Fluther folks!

We should plan a big get together in Orlando

Yes, I met my SO online, and also met a few other online friends. One day I am going to eat at the restaurant that uberbatman works in so I can meet him as well.

HAHA shame i dont work in a restaurant anymore :( I work at an aquarium store though so you can come buy fishies from me ^_^

Oh.. ok I always wanted a beta!!

yes I have. several times actually! yes, my life is funny because of this “knowing people from Internet” thing, but I don’t think I would trade it with any of my real-life friends! Let me explain more:
when you think of it, it’s really funny of how the existence of Internet has really changed many aspects of social interactions. some are good, and some are bad.
but the good thing about the Internet, in my own experience, is this: in Internet, people are usually much more open, because they don’t get all kind of harsh judgements, and prejudices, that they’d easily encounter in Real-life.
also, you can easily find a common interest in Internet, whether it’s of same/similar Personality, hobbies, perspective, etc.
Compare this to real-life situation! In Real life, at least according to my own experience, sometimes it’s just really really hard to immediately find friends or people who share common interest, or hobby, or perspective similar like me.

For example, I have always love music since I was a kid. In fact, I have to say that I am freaky about music, and I breathe & exhale music every moment (and I also compose & write songs).
In my real life here in Indonesia, people surrounding me are all so negative about music, easily told me to abandon music ‘cuz it’s of no use, or just treat is as what other people treat: a hobby, no more than that.
But the problem is, I’ve tried, and I couldn’t do that!
I used to get really depressed, and felt like noone understand me.. until I’ve went online, and found some Internet forums, mailing list, etc, and believe it or not, I’ve got much more supports & constructive answers & feedbacks rather than all the judgemental attitude in my real-life!
And I even got like 4–5 friends from Internet, who share very similar perspective/outlook about Life, success, and many things!
from the musicians itself, I’ve met like 2–3 people off from Internet, and surprisingly they are key Music people in my country, and they’re willing to help me to open the doors.
Compare this to the “rigid-minded” people surrounding my real-life!

So bottomline: there’s no saying or rule to say that Net (online) friends won’t ever become Real-life friends! that’s just wrong.
Internet is a really awesome technology, and it really helps a lot.
Ask any indie musician in your area, and you’ll see that they mostly would totally agree that if without Internet, they won’t be able to get their music heard, get fans, and even touring overseas because their music has reached International audience!...all of this through Internet! (and it’s also funny of how major/mainstream musicians here are still so confused on how to get their music go-international, while the small indie musicians here have toured from Australia, to Asia, and even one of the indie bands here got signed a label contract with famous U.S big label that handled The Cardigans!) .

But of course, obviously you still have to use common-sense while discerning which Internet people are really sincere, honest, truthful, versus those who’re just Internet pranksters or worse, tricksters.