THIS! Christine

I have the best friends in all of cyber space. I'm sure a lot of you feel the same about your online contacts... and it's true.

Several years ago, due to a series of unfortunate events, I was all alone on my birthday. At a loose end I decided to surf the web looking for something to read and fell into the amazing world of eharlequin.com. I read most of their online library and kept seeing these little links at the bottom of each page of the story--join this discussion. Everytime I clicked on it I received the same message 'become a member to join this discussion'. Oh how I wanted to, but I was leery as well. I'd not joined any group or service on the internet and I was so unsure about giving any personal information online. Eventually sheer curiosity got the better of me and I signed up... hey all they wanted was an email address, so I trotted off to hotmail and created an account just in case.

Once there, it was like stepping into a party already in progress, the women were witty and sharp, smart and thoughtful, and downright hilarious. My ennui lifted and I was immediately happy. In the first month there I met seven amazing women and we instantly gelled. We all shared the same dry wit and love of the ridiculous. I've made other friends over the years, but those seven remain. My husband used to call them my imaginary friends, but that has gradually changed as I've met most of them in real life now.

Some of us have since wandered far from the ehq message boards, but never far from each other. There's been weddings births, personal acheivements and yes, even sorrows, yet we're still happy to get together and share our news, or some piece of silliness. Never again will I suffer the trauma of my best friend relocating for that perfect job half way across the country. Where ever these friends of mine move, their computers go with them... we've actually held hook-up parties as we waited for the computer to be the first item unpacked and connected so we could find out how the move went.

Technology is a grand thing and I'm so very thankful that my incompetence with all things techno related hasn't stopped me from enjoying the society to be found at the end of my computer.

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