Friendship can start in weird ways, but it always starts by talking. In today’s technologically advanced society the Internet is one of the fastest ways to communicate. So it’s not too shocking to meet a lot of different people online. The question you need to ask is, "Can a real friendship grow out of just one night of talking?" Well in my case the answer is yes since I’ve met a great group of people. We are different ages and are quite a distance from one another, yet that has not stopped a friendship from growing. In an odd way our age differences and distance actually had quite the opposite effect; they brought us closer.
Over the holidays I decided to visite my friends to celebrate a late Christmas and New Years with them. We had to overcome some obstacles. My local friend Taryn, 18, whom I have known for years, and I boarded a plane bound for Maryland. Taryn also became friends the people I had met online. The flight wasn’t without its hitches. We were delayed an hour and somehow the airline managed to leave one of Taryn's bags in Philadelphia. They told us they would send it to the place where we were staying. As we got off the plane the grinning faces of Allison, 23, and Ashley, 21, our Internet friends, greeted us.
What was a Christmas celebration without Christmas dinner? Ashley called our other online friends, Shawn, 21, and Mike, 25, and invited them over as well. Now, the great task of cooking could begin. Ashley started on the turkey while Allison cut bread for stuffing. I peeled the potatoes, Taryn washed dishes and cleaned up after my messy potato-peeling scenario. Mike found drink recipes and started mixing them. We decided not to give Shawn a knife, as he was preoccupied with taking pictures of the goings on in the kitchen. At long last the turkey was done, or at least we hoped. The pop-up thermometer hadn’t popped, but the meat was falling off the bone. Shannon, Ashley’s roommate, said it was done so we trusted her judgment and sat down to eat.
As we ate we talked about anything and everything, enjoying each other’s company. Ashley and Taryn talked of colleges for dramatic arts, as both plan to major in drama. Shawn and I were talking on the finer points of the possibility of actually breeding mythical creatures. Meanwhile, Allison and Mike discussed why the mashed potatoes were so dry. If you had walked into the room at any time that night you could not tell who was the oldest and who was the youngest.
When it came time to count down to the last seconds of midnight, and the New Year, we toasted to friends and how close we had grown over the last year. We toasted how we had overcome obstacles of the distance that divides us and the age gap between us. We patted ourselves on the back for overcoming the unknown of the Internet and finding one another. Sure we have only seen each other once or twice but we are closer than anyone might have imagined.
