I embarked on my first long distance relationships back in 1965, courtesy of the Parker Pen Penpal exhibit at the World's Fair.  Over the years, through college I wrote reams and reams, sending/receiving pictures and keepsakes to a total of eleven kids across the world, most of whom I don't even remember their names anymore.  But from Lucia who lived in Rio de Janeiro to Robert Winstanley, the second Robert in England, I gathered the friends that I did not have in my day-to-day world.  Slowly they all vanished -- Enrico in Italy only wrote once, the girl in Turkey never replied after the earthquake and I can only hope she was too busy, the guy in Belgium was older and got into politics, Robert joined the RAF, the others just .... stopped.  Life, what we call "RL" -- the day-to-day physical world -- took over for all of us.

The second set of LDRs were as a result of folks I knew in high school going away to college.  "Write me" we all called at the last yearbook party, and some of us did.  That was how Kit and I cemented our relationship actually.   We had been friendly, but not close throughout high school, but when we wrote to each other we found that we had much more in common than was apparent on the outside.  It was my first taste of being heard without the preconceptions of the roles we play in our everyday life, the power of being able to actually be the person that I really am, and I have never forgotten the impact. of that insight.  It explained so much, and for the first time I felt a relectant admiration and empathy for John Adam's Abigail.

The third set of relationships were online, back in 1994/5 when I joined the Knowledge Ecology Network as it came to be called.  Here I met thought leaders in the field of knowledge management, here we discussed organizational change and development, here is where I shaped my own concepts of stealth KM and management that encompassed what we now call social networking.   Frank called the people that I would talk to online in asynchornous conversations my "imaginary friends" and was dumbfounded when I insisted on meeting some of them in person when I went out to speak in San Diego.  Maybe dumbfounded isn't a strong enough word for just how upset he was to learn that I was going to stay with someone who's last name I didn't actually know...  Mihaela was a wonderful hostess and those days with her in San Jose are a hightlght of my traveling times.  When Frank was struck down during a trip to Williamsburg, I gave my daughter my user ID and password so she could log in and let them know what happened to me.   I met many of these folks through the years in person, but some I have only followed from one online community to another....  Smith-Weaver-Smith, MetaNet, BrainStorms, Chautauqua, and others.  I remember each person we lost, including the one who got so upset that we weren't supporting him after 9.11 and left in a huff, including those who have passed away, including those like me who have all but fallen silent.

Now I am in Second LIfe, and online relationships seem to have gotten much more complicated....