Pretty much all my life (alright, after I turned 10 years old), I have had contact with people online. First it was an email boyfriend, then it was my wiccan group at the Whiteshadow forum, then I went with a bit more general topics on the FOK forum and eventually I ended up at the Viva forum, which is a super big community full of Viva readers (it is a Dutch magazine), which are usually women from 20-45 I would say.

I am not on there a lot, cause it is so big that it sometimes overwhelms me, but I did spot a topic where a girl was looking for cinema friends. Going to the cinema alone is fine in my book, but obviously it is a lot more fun to take friends. So she probably thought the same thing and then a cinema group started. I joined the group, which exists for over a year now, just two weeks ago, but I am very happy to say that yesterday I met the ladies and it was great.

I really love meeting new people, even though it costs a lot of energy for me to entertain people. The ladies in my group can be a bit quiet, which sometimes means that I start talking even more.. Aaah, I already talk so much. Anyway, yesterday we had dinner and went to see Me Before You, which was a pretty nice movie. There were lots of women around me crying out loud, which always makes me feel like a robot, but I still liked the movie 😉

My boyfriend was a bit mean about the ladies, he was like: were they socially awkward or something, cause they make online friends? And I was offended, especially as he also spends 80 percent of his life online, so why not meet people online? I was very glad I did, cause even though we did not really speak a lot before we met, we are all women with our own problems and it is very nice to be able to spend a few hours together and talk about them. And exactly because we are “just” cinema friends, there is no pressure of when to contact each other. It is just: hey, shall we go, and then we see when everybody can make it.

I actually felt like it was pretty bold to just go to this group and see what happened, and I was very happy that it was so much fun. I am all for new experiences and this group is great. The ladies like movies, just like me, so we can have a good time together. And because it is a group, there is always something to talk about. I was very excited about going to see them, and I am happy it turned out to be an interesting group, especially because they are people that are not ultimate geeks, which makes them people I can possibly even learn from.

I am glad I met them, and we already planned our next cinema outing. I am looking forward to it, even though I am also a bit insecure if they really like me too or not 😉 But I think the upcoming years I will have those feelings more often, hihi. I am glad I do not feel awkward about making friends online, cause that is just how the world works. You do not really go to a bar to make friends right? I have made amazing friends at work, that I love very much, and I am also making friends at my ‘new’ job, I just see the internet as an extension of it.

I do not think friendships in 2016 are still like they were in 1996. You can have so many friends and stay in touch through social media. It too depends on what your idea of friendship is, obviously, but I have always had a lot of different type of friends in many different places. Some of them I do not speak to for years, but I still consider them friends. Maybe that is weird, but usually when we do reach out to eachother, everything is good.

I am proud of myself for making new friends, reaching out to people, and I look forward to a lot of cinema nights with this new group, and with many other friends that I might speak to everyday, or every few years. 😉