When we join Twitter, those who befriend us are labeled as “followers”. On Facebook, they’re “friends”.
With blogging, we often label fellow bloggers as “blogging buddies”.
But who are these people, really?
Today’s Lesson
In the comments of the The Cost Of Being Heard post Sara of A Sharing Connection said, in part,
One thing kind of bothers me about the subject of “real” friends and “online” friends I don’t see a great deal of difference, except I can’t see the online person. A friend is a friend. Friendship is about communication and sharing. So what if it’s not face-to-face?
Writing coach Davina of Shades of Crimson shared,
The only time when I feel funny talking to my offline friends about blogging is when I hear myself say, “My online friend so and so said…” It sounds like I have invisible friends, lol. …
In real life it’s easy to label someone we know. We’ll say, “my friend…”, or tag them with a descriptive title such as “my sister”, “my cousin” or “a co-worker.” and whomever we’re talking to, knows exactly who we’re talking about.
But what about the people we meet online? Who are they?
A friend? A follower? An online acquaintance? A fellow blogger? A blogging buddy?
Do we classify them differently because we’ve never met in person?
Are they an acquaintance or blogging buddy first, but after we’ve known them for a while, they earn the “friend” title?
Behind every blog, every Facebook post, and every tweet is a real person with real feelings. Real thoughts. Real emotions.
People just like us.
Although we can’t see them and may never meet them, via words, relationships form.
Are they less important than the relationships we have in the real world?
Maybe not.
Today’s Assignment
When talking to your real life friends about those whom you’ve met online, how do you describe them?
Do you think online and offline friendships/relationships can be equal?
Care to share?
Hi. I'm Barbara Swafford and I'd like to welcome you to Blogging Without A Blog. Grab a seat, share your thoughts and join in the conversation. 
Do you remember when you first started blogging?
Although I don’t think about it often, I still do.
I was scared to hit “publish” the first few times, and I worried because I kept switching my theme.
I didn’t know any of the blogging terms either.
Being self taught, I spent most of my non-writing time searching for help, but even when I found help, I usually didn’t understand what to do with it.
I was pretty naive.
Today’s Lesson
When I think back to when I first started blogging, I didn’t have too many expectations except for thinking I could make
lots ofsome money by having a blog.Truth be told, I wasted a lot of time on blogging activities I should have postponed until later or maybe not even got involved in, but that’s in the past.
What about you?
Today’s Assignment
Looking back, if you had to do it all over again, where would you have spent more time?
Where would you have spent less time?
Care to share?