Wednesday, March 30, 2005

By any other name....

I find it curious when friends from different parts of my life should meet. Like most people, I have gathered friends from school, university, work, hobbies and other such places. When they are all thrown together for a significant event, it is often an unexpected melting pot that results. Sometimes, due in part to the fact that I will share stories of people to each other, they inadvertently know bits and pieces of each others lives or dramas. Indeed, people's perceptions of what the "other" friends look like can be blown apart by the reality.

More recently with the numerous people I have met via the internet (ok, I admit, by dating sites), they can and have been mentioned on this little blog. Some of these people I have never, or rarely, met face to face. So it is somewhat amusing to see the reactions of two people that are both spoken about on here, meeting each other for the first time.

After a bit of the usual repartee that I expect from Absum on-line, we decided that he should come over for a feast of chocolate, wine and "The Empire Strikes Back" - not necessarily in that order. During our happy rendez-vous, S and the flatmate dropped in for a visit before taking on some local drinking establishment. It was with some hesitancy that I introduced the two; "Um, well, S this is Absum. Absum, S". On-line names and personalities were now made flesh. The question did pass through my mind at one point, whether to introduce them to each other purely using their "real" names, or should their pseudonyms be revealed? I opted for the latter apparently, but still felt some reticence about it.

Seeing them meet face to face seemed to shrink my universe just a little. I realised that when one's worlds merge, it leaves no place to escape to.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

completely lost with this entry, I seem to be missing the point altogether, who/what is Absum? and was "S" and old on-line date?

Cath said...

Point?..... Does there need to be a point? 'Tis a blog - I thought they were meant almost by definition to be pointless!

By the way, prior entries reveal who these characters are with respect to my life.

Anonymous said...

I'm Absum, of course, and if you'd paid attention in your beginner's latin class you'd know who I am as well!