Did you know that I met one of my best friends through the Internet? Eight years ago I answered a craigslist post for some girls looking for a roommate, and I ended up being the new roomie they picked. At first I formed my opinions about the three gals I was moving in with - I thought they all seemed cool but the one I thought that I had the least in common with ended up being the one that I became the closest too - Mary. She is such a sweet, smart, funny, laid back person - being friends with her has been awesome. She is the one who matched me up with my husband, and I've visited her in 3 other states that she has lived in since our lease was up 7 years ago and we all went our separate ways. My daughter's middle name is after her - because after all, MM wouldn't exist if Mary hadn't introduced me to my husband!
In general I have this weird dichotomy in the sense that at times I can be very trusting of people and forget that bad people exist. And at other times my experience working in different sectors of law enforcement I've been taught to be extremely suspicious of people. I vacillate between trust and suspicion of people depending on the circumstances.
Several years ago (5 year ago actually) I joined an online network of newly married gals from all across the country. We shared stories, recipes, and random things over the course of about a year. Even though I never met them, I felt like many of them were cool people that I would be friends with were we living in the same places. It was a nice way for me to connect with others who were in a similar place in life to me since I worked in an office with mostly older people and many of my local friends were unmarried at the time. Our online group pretty much disbanded as most of us had kids and others became busy with careers. Many of us have still stayed in touch through FB and some of our private blogs.
One of the gals from that group, I got the chance to meet in person a few months ago. I was already going to be in San Francisco visiting my dad and helping him out, so I got in touch with her and we made plans to meet. After years of FB posts and blog posts, we sat down and had almond milk lattes at a fun SF coffee shop back in April. It seemed a little weird at first - what was I doing meeting some random chick from the Internet? It was really cool though, we had a lot to talk about and probably could have kept chatting. If I lived in SF, she is definitely someone I'd want to be friends with!
So my friend Mary, her husband and their baby are moving to the Seattle area next month. I am SO excited to have them nearby! She has been super stressed looking for housing, especially being out of state right now. She asked me if I could check out a few places for her since not all things can translate correctly through Internet pictures. Last weekend I checked out a few houses for her. One of them was really gross - it smelled like someone or something had died there. Or maybe a cat had marked it's territory in every room. Yuck - regardless, I didn't even want to be in there for 5 minutes let alone advise my dear friend and her family to live there. Another house I checked out for them was OK, but overpriced for the location and didn't quite meet all their requirements. The third place I checked out for them was awesome. Mary had told me she had a good feeling about the couple and the house, but she wanted in person verification that it all checked out. The couple were such great people and their house was so nice and well maintained - I told Mary if she doesn't want that house I will take it! Mary had told me she wanted to trust that the people were nice and honest as she got a good feeling about them, but she said her experience has made her suspicious. When I talked to the couple during my tour of their house they said they too were uneasy about the whole renting to strangers aspect of the process but they felt like Mary and her husband seemed like genuine people that they would be friends with were circumstances different. I was able to reassure both parties in this situation that they were all a great fit for each other and it looks like the rental deal with go through smoothly for them. Yay!
Prior to my trip to San Francisco last month, my husband teased me that I was going to meet a "creepy Internet friend" on my trip with my coffee meet up. As I said, it ended up being a fun and pleasant meet up and I now have a restored sense of faith in humanity knowing that not all people out there are creeps (yes, creeps do exist) but I've been lucky to meet some nice, normal and cool people through the Internet. And hey, had I not met some chick named Mary through Craigslist 8 years ago, I would not have the life I have now.
I'm late to post a comment to this, but hahahahah. High fives for taking a chance and trusting that there are still normal, good people in this world! :)
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