The closeness of the virtual world

I was enthralled at the abundance of pseudo-friends, old friends, new friends, close friends and family that the virtual world has to offer. But how close could you get to be in the virtual world? Is it a phase of some sort of contact for acquaintances becoming your buddy, your pal, your chum because of a past, a present of future situations . But then again, your still removed, apart, distant or at least different from the traditional ways of spending time together. Does it work? What if it were our only contact to be with "friends?" It may not satisfy the total need for human interaction, but it does allow for connections to be made. In fact, I've rekindled relationships with numerous people whom otherwise i wouldn't have a clue where they were in this life. Not that it would be too hard to find them but it would take some time, great effort and there would definitely be fewer on the playing field.

I was exposed to a New York times story, Lives - Facebook in a Crowd - NYTimes.com
By HAL NIEDZVIECKI. The gist of the story is that "You’ve got friends; just don’t expect to meet them." when he was trying to have a real, actual get together with his facebook friends. It failed. When 1 person showed up of 70+ who said they would and didn't, the one person that came was a person he barely new anyway. Thus the feeling of failure to do some real connecting with virtual acquaintances chased him to produce the understanding of the distance in the "close field" of virtual meeting places.

I myself have felt the opposite in that many people i thought of as gone from past events has afforded me the joy of connecting to them once again. They live countries apart yet talk to me just as if we were together in communication. Such a feat fills me with joy as i move about the internet, blogs and websites with knowledge of friends, acquaintances,old buddy's and even past loves. But I guess i'm "lucky?" that most of these people are physically unreachable without it costing in time, money and organization skills or I would probably not have made that many "connections". I feel that the separateness of the distance between, is partially the association that we all have in common. Its great but will I try to make it more than the programs allow? It may be the opposite reality that has the opposite effect for my new and renewed relations. HAL NIEDZVIECKI found out the hard way.