Ward's Population Evolution Lab

Internet / Internet friendship

I have a new friend whom I've met with the Internet. He is very different from me. He is a young man and I am a woman of middle age. He is from India, I was born in Pennsylvania. I do not know if we have many interests together, but we both have an interest in the German language. We wrote back and forth in German. That gives me about friendship and the Internet to think. Internet is good for friendship, I think. For example, I can with many friends from my university almost every day to talk through an email list. I often talk to my sister and my brothers. Before I traveled to German Chand, I could talk to my landlord through the mail. But internet friendship is not the same friendship face to face. You can always pretend that you are different. When people are physically together, people can deeply understand each other. There is a saying in English "the eyes are the windows of the soul." And that is often right. It is easy to know if the eyes can see whether a person is honest or not. But I have warm feelings about people I've met with the internet. And I have personally met some people I've met through the Inernet first. Perhaps that is a bit dangerous. I know that my Internet friends may be different than they appear. But I would not have these friends, and meet from time to time. I think they make my life richer. I also believe today that I have not written very clearly. The issue goes beyond my ability with German.

I have a new friend who I met on the internet. He is very different from me. He is a young man and I am a middle aged woman. He comes from India and I was born in Pennsylvania. I don't know if we have many common interests, but we are both interested in the German language. We write back and forth in German. This made me think a bit about internet friendship. I think that the internet is good for friendship. For example I can talk with my friends from college almost daily via an email list. I can communicate often with my sister and my brothers. Before I traveled to Germany I could talk via email with my landlady. But internet friendship is not the same as face to face friendship. One can always pretend to be different than one is. When people are physicallly together then can understand each other more deeply. There is a proverb in English "The eyes are the windows of the Soul," and that is often correct. It's easier to know, when you can see the eyes, if a person is honest. But I have warm feelings about people that I have met over the internet. And I've pesonally met some people that I met first over the internet. Maybe that is a bit dangerous. I know that my internet friends might be different than they seem. But I would still have these friends, and occasionally meet them. I believe that they make my life richer. I also think I haven't written very clearly. This subject goes beyond my skill in German.