Friendship sure has changed - or has it?

My childhood friends were the neighbor kids from a three or four house radius. Once I started elementary school, my circle broadened to include my best friend, Dawn, who actually lived two blocks away. Things stayed that way throughout high school as I added to my small circle of friends through participating in certain activities like choir and drama. Then I went to college and added a few girls in the residence hall rooms neighboring mine (through whom I met my dearest college friend, Darcy, who became my roommate my sophomore year).

Next there were work friends. Once I started teaching, I became close friends with my fellow English teacher Kathy, who ended up being my matron of honor, and I’ve worked with my best friend, Michele, on and off during my nearly 14 years at my current company.

I think that most of us could relay a similar story about a similar "friendship cycle." Some friends stick with you forever, some do not, but they have always tended to be of the moment. Present. Nearby.

It’s amazing to me how now the online connections that we take for granted have so significantly changed this friendship cycle.

For example, my husband and I have “car club friends.” We have local car club friends, which kind of fit into the category above – of the moment, nearby. But, thanks to the internet, we spent much of the late 1990s and early 2000s connecting with others from all over the country who shared our interest in the 1994-1996 Impala SS and related GM B-Body cars. We have been lucky enough to meet with these people in person, practically on a yearly basis, since 1998. I have Impala SS-related friends in places like Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Connecticut, and New York. These are people who, if we were on a road trip and needed a place to stay or had car problems, could actually be called on to help. Real friends. We may not see them all of the time, but we would readily drive halfway across the country to compete with them during the day and sit with them at night in a hotel parking lot talking over burnout fumes and drinks and it would be as if we’d never been apart.

It’s the same with our “Disney friends.” As I mentioned in my last post about traveling to Walt Disney World, we have met several really good people through the online Disney fan community and we consider them to be true friends. Again, these are people from all over the country: Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Texas, Georgia, Delaware, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and more. Even Canada! These are the kind of friends who’ve been added to the Christmas card list. I communicate with some of them almost daily via Facebook, message boards, and even by text. I met my BFF, Kathy, this way – someone with whom I have more in common than would seem possible for a Jersey girl and a girl from the Midwest. We’ve traveled with these folks on Disney cruises, trips to Disney World, and, with some of them, even as far as Hollywood and Disneyland. Although we’ve had some incredibly fun times with these people, we have also been there for one another in the very worst of possible situations.

I guess that the best friendships are still simply based on having something in common with someone. That used to mean locale. Thank goodness that we live in an age when that’s no longer necessarily always the case.