Last night I drove up to Escondido to meet a friend for dinner. And like a lot of the people I’m meeting lately, this is a friend that, up until the moment we shake hands, I’ve never met physically. It wasn’t the meal that was fun or memorable. It was getting to know someone in real life that I’d known online for years.

For some people meeting people from the online world seems odd. To me, it has always been perfectly natural. People whom I like online I almost always like face-to-face. It’s never scary. I’ve never been worried about them being an ax murderer. And typically, we fall into normal conversation pretty quickly. I’ve done it hundreds of times!

So here’s my encouragement. If you have the opportunity to meet-up with a blogger, facebooker, twitterer, YouTuber, or forumite… do it.

My experiences offline with people I first met online has only ever enhanced the community concept. It’s a big lonely world made slightly nicer and smaller through key strokes, videos, emoticons, and photos.