Is there a certain way people here on the boards start to form a relationship with other members? It seems like there are plenty of you that are friends with other dopers. Are these people you knew before you came here? What made you want to contact these other members?
More specifically, is it odd not to have made contacts through the message board? I haven’t really been looking to make contact with anyone, but wondered if I was some sort of outcast since I hadn’t done so, or hadn’t been contacted by other dopers? I guess it all boils down to my own paranoia. Or does it?
The most frequent way that friendships start around here is probably at Dopefests, which are discussed with some regularity in this forum. For instance, as I write this, there are threads on the MPSIMS front page either for planning of, or wrapup after, Dopefests in KC, Minneapolis, Portland, Montreal, and London.
Dopefests are ‘come one, come all’ events: if there’s a thread about one in your area, and you feel like attending, post to that effect in the thread, and show up.
Friendships are easier to develop, IMHO, if there’s FTF rapport as well as online, although I consider myself friends with a number of people I’ve known for years online but never met IRL.
There are many ways of forming friendships with other Dopers – two common ones are Dopefests and e-mail. Many people know each other before joining the boards, but many people that don’t know each other prior to joining the boards do become friends here.
In a way, I feel that I tend to be more real, so to speak, when interacting via e-mail/IM. Given that, I’m often very eager to contact others via this message board, really in almost any situation where their posts resonate with me somehow, although I’m doing my best to curtail this.
I’m sure there’s many people here who haven’t made any off-board contacts, and there’s many who don’t desire to do so. Certainly it’s not an outcast thing – many people are here for reasons which aren’t primarily social reasons.
As for the paranoia, there aren’t that many evil weirdos on the boards…
I have no contacts on the board either. One very nice woman did contact me, but after a few emails we discovered that we had little in common. I would worry about it if I were you.
I interacted with Dopers in chat, and that’s really how I got to know people. As RTFirefly says, DopeFests are also a great way to meet people. Dopers will be helping us move this coming weekend, and were the majority of guests at our (last July) wedding.
I met my husband after calling him a name in a thread, actually. He moved me to the Mid-Atlantic, and the MADs seem to be one of the most active groups of Dopers. We have a once-a-month dinner, as well as other regular get-togethers. Jonathan Chance hosts MountainDope in June and HalloweenDope at (duh) Halloween. We host Dope The Halls at Christmas. We get together ‘just because’ as well.
Most of my Doper friends I have met at Dopefests. A few I have met through LiveJournal or #straightdope. My roommate is a Doper, but she and I had had never interacted on the message board. Eventually she attended a Dopefest, was informed that she just had to have a LiveJournal, and I started seeing her comments appear on the journal entries of my friends who had also attended that Dopefest. We had a lot of common interests and eventually became friends, and now we’re roommates. I don’t think we’ve ever even posted to the same threads on the SDMB!
My roommate’s fiance is also a Doper and they met in #straightdope, an IRC channel on the Undernet server that is not affiliated with the Straight Dope or the Chicago Reader. A lot of my LJ friends hang out in #sd from time to time, too.
I’ve met people through email/IM/chat and LiveJournal.
I can honestly say I have dear friends who I’ve never met face to face - TwistOfFate, I still have that Guinness fueled Saint Patrick’s Day voice mail. Back in the day when Crunchy Frog’s phone number was a #800, I used to talk to him and other Dopers a lot - iampunha, True Pisces, Verrain and others I am forgetting. I even attended a really Teeny DopeFest in St Louis - just me, Frog, Turbo Dog and Tequila Mockingbird.
Another Doper (well former Doper if you want to be picky), Satan, is one of my best friends. I know I can always depend on him if I need something (like someone to talk me down) and vice versa. Even if he threatens to deep fry my parrot…
One of my greatest friendships on or off the boards came about through a specific thread in which we discovered we shared a very similar sense of the ridiculous. That was its genesis, and the friendship was firmed later through the boards, chat, and the ol’ fashioned telephone. We still haven’t met.
I’ve also formed other friendships through the other message boards frequented by members of the Straight Dope community. It is still possible to “meet” poeple on this board, but the others have a more intimate and social atmosphere, mainly due to their smaller size.
Yet other, newer friendships have come about through alliances formed when things have turned ugly on the boards. The Pit can be useful sometimes, after all.
To turn this question around a bit, I came to the boards because GingerOfTheNorth stayed with me just prior to her wedding last summer, and dragged me off to a Dopefest in the Vancouver area.
Me: What?? You want me to go meet who??
GotN: People I have never met IRL, who I know from this message board. That’s how I met my fiance, you know.
Me: I know. Locks door, throws away key. You’ll thank me for this when you come to your senses.
In this, as with soo many things in our friendship, Ginger won.
I’ve only met two dopers IRL. BeagleDave and ChrisCPT. Although I live a stones throw away from the mod squad.
I tend to miss the Quad City Dopefests because I work weekends and the Chicago and Spiffield ones because of lack of funds and no sitter.
Maybe if BeagleDave ever attends one or someone swings through my area on their way I could ride up with them.
I’ve got a penny jar I’m saving up to meet Chef Troy whom I’ve chatted with on the phone a few times and IM when he is free. That man has one sexy voice.
I’ve also talked on the phone with WeirdDave a few times. One of the funniest and nices guys you will ever come across. Ginger is one lucky lady!
Upham and I chat as much as we can and since he likes to wander I always try to get him to wander down into the states for a visit.
Bodypoet and I chat off and on as well. She has been a great help to me. She is another one I would love to get together with.
I’m also getting ready to group with some Dopers in Everquest. I am so looking forward to that! It should be a blast.
I’ve randomly chated with others who have asked for people to IM them when they were stressed, lonely, or just needed something to do.
Chat is another good way to connect.
I haven’t “connected” with half the people I would like to, but sometimes I feel like a big uneducated dork and get worried they won’t like me.
So have you taken the plunge yet and found the chat? It’s a great place to start. And these are some great people to have as friends.
I have made IRL friends through another board that I am on. For about 99% of those that I met in person, it was the result of the other board’s version of a Dopefest. The others that I’ve met were of the “anyone want to meet in Adams Morgan for dinner tonight” variety when I have nothing in the house to eat and the twenty bucks to make eating out something other than McD’s. I do plan on trying to make a MAD lunch or dopefest sometime soon. Really, I swear
I don’t normally frequent chats with more than 4 or 5 people active at a time. It is too much of a challenge for me to keep up with what is going on and actually carry on a line of discussion for more than 1.2 seconds.
I’ve met a few Dopers IRL, mainly at the Dopefest that Sinshine mentioned. (Mark wants to know how you are, by the way) Though I did attend the Vancouver birthday dinner for Zyada a few months back, as well.
Mainly, I interact with other Dopers here through this board / email / IMs. I used to go to #sd for a while last summer and fall, but stopped for a variety of reasons. I also have an LJ, but my friends list is kinda small. (eh well… plenty of time for that, maybe)
There are great people here whom I’ve not met IRL that I still consider my friends. I’m not sure if that feeling’s reciprocated (especially if we’ve only interacted on the board), but I still feel that way.
I’ve met most of my friends through either e-mails that were sent in response to something that I or they had said on the Board (that’s how I met my best friend, Lindyhopper, after flirting with him here and then sending him a birthday card after Euty’s birthday thread two years ago), IMs (which is how I met my fiance’, Verrain, chatting in AIM about 2 years ago), through other Dopers (which is how I met pucette, thanks to Falcon when I was moving to NY), or through Dope-related activities (which is where a good 90% of the rest come in). I’ve also made friends with several either at the UnaBoard or livejournal. So really, they come out of the woodwork from everywhere for me.
