The whole concept of online friends and relationships is a topic of great interest to me, so let's see what kind of perspective I can offer. I grew up on dialup BBSes, and in high school, made many good friends from my own BBS or others I frequented. Several of them are still close friends of mine to this day. In each case, the way we became friends usually started off with some common ideas or perspectives we were expressing. My BBS, and the others I visited, were very message-board focused, so the people you began to identify with were, initally at least, people who were expressing views similar to yours. However, as time goes on, I started to make "friends" with people who were expressing completely different ideas, because the people with similiar ideas were kinda boring. These other people, with different ideas, were at least using logical arguments, and I started to choose my "friends" based on who made the most sense, not necessarily who I agreed with.

Eventually, through BBS get-togethers and such, my "friends" would become friends (no quotes) and we would spend time together on the weekends, etc. Back then, you actually dialed in to communicate, so chances were the people you were communicating with were within easy meeting distance. Sometimes, when I met certain people, they were nothing like I had expected, and there was no "chemistry" for lack of a better word. Conversely, sometimes, people I had largely ignored or underestimated based on their online personna were very cool in person. It all depended on how much of themselves they decided to share, versus how much they decided to keep to themselves. Or, sometimes, how much I read into their words on the BBS.

The Internet has changed things quite a lot. My chances of conversing online with someone from, say, Cambridge, were quite low in the dial-up BBS days. Now it's a regular occurrence. There are much wider and more diverse views here. This BBS attracts people from a very wide age range, whereas my BBS was mostly kids in their teens, with some 20 and 30-somethings sprinkled in occasionally. The sheer volume of discussion can be increased because the BBS isn't limited by the number of phone lines you have. All of these are improvements on the old-style BBSes, most of which have vanished from existence.

There are drawbacks, of course. The "cozy, friendly" aspect of dialup BBSes is one that I have yet to see duplicated on the Internet. This place feels more like "home" than does any other site on the Internet for me, but it still doesn't approach the way things were. Some of the things mentioned above as advantages could qualify as disadvantages in this context. Because of the more diverse user base, maybe it's harder to get cohesive discussions going. Kinda how when cities evolve, people of different ethnic groups create their own little neighborhoods (Chinatown, Little Italy, etc.) so they can be with people they can relate to. In this respect, the Internet's broad reach is a bit of a drawback. Maybe there are times that people just want to be with "their own."

Here, we all have a common bond that's rather trivial, if you think about it. We all own a little electronic music gadget. That's what brought us here. Some people (a majority of the BBS, I'd say) comes just for that. Info on features, support, etc. Then there's those of us who devote at least part of our BBS time to non-empeg discussions. So we come for the geeky stuff, and stay for the good conversations we have here on just about every random topic you can think of.

Drifting back to your specific question a little bit, because I've never been able to attend any of the owners meets, I don't feel like I could call anyone here a true friend, without the quotes. Despite the fact that I grew up with electronic acquaintances who became real friends, or perhaps because of that fact, I tend to separate someone's online personna from the person they really are. Often they are close, but sometimes, they are night and day. So I try not to make any assumptions about what a person is really like based on the person they are online. Maybe it'll give me a clue, but until a true in-person meeting happens, everyone is kind of in "pen pal" status.

That's not to say that I don't have "friends" (quotes) online. I respect and admire a lot of people on this BBS, for the knowledge, opinions, and sometimes humor that they bring. Anyone who contributes regularly here is, to one extent or another, a "friend." But since I don't know any of you beyond what you choose to share on the BBS, it's a lot harder for me to place anyone in the friend category, where frankly, there aren't many open positions, so to speak.

You know that feeling you get when you've read a particular writer's column in the newspaper so much that you feel like you can identify with them? That's sort of what takes place here. We all don't know each other in a conventional sense, but we know each other by how we express ourselves here.

In your particular example, though you are somewhat new to the BBS (less than a year if I recall), you're a regular contributor, and I tend to enjoy reading your unique perspective on some of the "deeper" issues we discuss here. You're obviously a religious man, but you don't let that define who you are, and don't feel the need to tell everyone here that Jesus is the only God, something I've gotten from more than a number of people in my lifetime. You seem like you'd be a fun guy to talk to and hang around with, and, oh yeah, you just happen to be a preacher.

Now, that's what your online personna tells me, but there are a lot of things I would never know without knowing you in a more conventional sense, hence the reason I distinguish between "friend" and friend. When I'm referring to one of you in a conversation with one of my friends, I tend to use the rather unwieldy term "online acquaintance" to make the distinction clear to the person I'm talking to.

So, to summarize, if the words and ideas we express here are truly representative of who we are, then when a meeting does take place, I'm sure we would be proud to call each other friends, without the quotes. Until then, the distinction between "friend" and friend, for me at least, is just a result of the fact that we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet.