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While I have over a thousand friends on Facebook and Twitter, and hundreds between my Yahoo and Google chat accounts, how many of these 'friends' could be real life friends?  More importantly, how often do virtual friendships translate into real life relationships?

As I've gotten older, I've found it more difficult to have and sustain long-term relationships in real life.  It's simply hard to make real friends as a grown-up.  I understand that some friends are only meant to be short-term, solely to serve a purpose at that moment, while others may last a lifetime, but where do my virtual friends fit in?

My virtual world spans further than the social media most of us participate in daily.  I have friends on my various online profiles that include swinger websites, MySpace, and even a webcam site or two.  While I only maintain a few identities (something we all do), I am

the same person from one to another. I just reveal different sides of myself.  Is everyone else this honest? Maybe, but probably not.

On all of my friend lists are avatars of men with washboard stomachs or women with professional looking portraits.  Some even present themselves as cartoon characters or their pet dog. Who are these people?  It's very easy to photoshop your profile photo or take your picture at an angle to make you look 20 lbs thinner or even 20 years younger.  Do these things matter in real life?  Yes and no.  When asked, most told me that they are totally real on their profiles and never lie about themselves.  But who is telling the truth, and more importantly, does anyone care?  When I recently wrote about men being lazy in bed I got a flood of messages and emails from men claiming that they always put all the focus on the woman---everything is about her needs.  If this is true of all 100 or so that contacted me, why haven't I met you yet?

Although I have met some of you in real life, some of you were my real life friends first. More of you I have yet to meet. However, I'm not really sure if it's possible to be a true friend after our virtual relationship.  When I see the real you and you see the real me, will we have to strip ourselves of the half truths we told online?

The beauty of the internet is we can be whoever we want to be.  I am a swinging soccer mom in real life, but it's not a persona that I share with many of my real friends.  I suppose you could say that I'm two people.  I have introduced all of you to a private part of me and left out the public me altogether.  This doesn't make me a liar or a fake; it's really who I am here and there, but not everywhere.

My first swinging experiences started in the virtual world.  This really was barely more than a little exhibitionism.  Soccer Dad and I shared our private lives with 500+ people who never knew our real names.  Some people we began to consider 'friends' and allowed them to know some of the real life us.  We met these people, we shared experiences with them, and for a short time, I called them friends.  That was close to ten years ago and we no longer know them.  Our virtual friends turned out to be nothing more than a passing fantasy.  And that is what I think about most of my virtual friends.  I may see you day to day in the virtual world, but until you have crossed my path in my real world and have sustained something intimate with me, we really won't be true friends.  You are my virtual friend and I'm ok with that.  I think we would be great real friends if some of our communication happened on a different plain.  In the meantime, I will continue to wonder about the real you just as you wonder about the real me and we'll never truly know how much is real.

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