I'll bet you're a right laugh at dinner parties.

[richard]

I'll bet you're a right laugh at dinner parties.

Well DTM triggered this thought off in a recent 'global' post and it followed on from a brief encounter and chat I had yesterday with Lomu.

How many of us have met face to face? and in doing so, changed our views about various posts and posters and broadened our thinking?

NO,NO,NO, I'm not advocating another HHF get together as there are always dissenters there who only want to stir the sh1t.

So,how many of you have ever thought who amongst the posters you would most like to meet? Either round a dinner table, by a pool, a quiet bar table, one to one or in a group?

Just a thought but every time I meet a new forum member face to face I get a buzz and 99% of the time it's a positive buzz

Over to you

[MrPlum]

As a forum felon, currently serving time, I'm sure I'm not allowed visitors.

Have met a number of members face-to-face and it's always been a pleasure.

[dtaai-maai]

As the trigger, I suppose I'm obliged to fire a bullet, so...

I have to say I don't think about the forum in this way. While I enjoy (very much, even after 6 years) the banter on the forum, I don't see it as a means of meeting new people.

Having said that, I've now met quite a few forum members (mostly because of a forum-related activity) and some of them have become friends. A few have become good friends. Then again of course, after meeting me, who wouldn't want to be my friend? <aw shucks>

Take JW's quiz, for example. Most of the forum members I've met there are just people, not 'forum members'. I couldn't tell you their forum user names for love nor money.



And what does this mean?

I'm not advocating another HHF get together as there are always dissenters there who only want to stir the sh1t.

I can't say I've ever experienced anything like that, and if I thought it was true, I wouldn't go anywhere near a forum do.

There are a few people I haven't met who seem quite interesting - which usually means that they have a sense of humour that strikes a chord and an approach to life that I can relate to, and if I get to meet them in the real world - well, we'll see. There are also a few more whom I actively don't think I would get on with, but who knows? I might be pleasantly surprised.

But that's life and, by and large, I'd rather leave my circle of friends to real life rather than the Internet.

Just a thought but every time I meet a new forum member face to face I get a buzz and 99% of the time it's a positive buzz

Sorry, but that probably makes me picky.

[J.J.B.]

To me, the Forum is a channel, plain and simple. It's a way of facilitating communication, which I define as the process through which ideas are shared to achieve mutual understanding. The Internet has facilitated many aspects of our modern lives such as shopping, banking, travel etc. but still doesn't mean we don't browse shops in person, visit banks or use the services of travel agents.

In the past, we met people and made friends at work, at school, in the pub or even - God forbid - in the trenches and some we liked and some we didn't. The anonymity of the Forum allows people to exercise alter egos, perhaps to say things they wouldn't in person and that probably skews our perception of them but chances are that whether online or offline, some people we would like and others less so.

I enjoy the banter on the forum, am constantly surprised by the breadth and strength of opinions and am always cheered to see people genuinely wanting to help one another. That said, I'm with DM on this one and don't see the Forum as a substitute for offline interaction, rather just another way of communicating. I'm also not a big believer in T-shirt philosophy that espouses a stranger is 'a friend you haven't met yet' so will probably take all interactions as they come.