Time to Get Serious About This Blogging Thing

I had a surreal experience last night.  Perhaps something like this has happened to you.

I was invited to an Oy!Chicago event at a beer garden, and having been interviewed in that particular magazine, I thought it'd behoove me to check it out.  Once I'd arrived, I realized that I probably wouldn't know anyone there, and for some reason an incredible shyness overcame me.  Maybe it was because I went stag--I'd come to a social event without Miriam, my usual conversational backup troop.  Maybe it was because the only things I had in common with any of these people was that we're all from Chicago, and we're all Jewish, or Jew-ish.  Or maybe it was because I don't drink, and I'd gone to a friggin' beer garden.

I walked around the block, twice.  I called a friend to see if he was planning on going.  He was.  Whew.

Finally, I gathered the courage and walked in.  There was a small group of people eating and drinking at a table near the entrance to the beer garden, and a happy woman in a purple shirt greeted me, and asked, "Are you here for the 'Oy' party?"
"Yes."
"This is it.  I'm Libby."  She extended her hand for me to shake it.  Libby Ellis!  It was she who had interviewed me for the piece in the magazine, and it was then that I realized that I'd never actually met her.  Our interview was conducted over the internet.
"Libby.  I'm Alan Sufrin, Stereo Sinai."
"Stereo Sinai!  Of course, it's nice to finally meet you.  Have a seat."
"Thanks.  I'll be right over."  I went to the bar to get a cup of ice-water.

And that was the theme for the evening.  Believe it or not, my socializing was divided among people I'd already known into roughly the following categories: a) people I'd known or met in person (yeah, there actually were a few), b) people I'd just met that evening for the first time, and c) people I'd known only through the internet one way or another.  People whose blogs I read on a daily basis, like Chaviva Edwards and Leah Jones, and people who read this blog regularly.  People about whom I had read and shared relatively intimate things in their own words, yet had never actually met.  Most of our conversations revolved around cyber-interactions of various kinds, which was the most surprising thing of all, and was true even of the people I talked with whom I had already known in person.  Here was yet another thing we had in common that I naively hadn't expected at all.

Admittedly, it was odd for me.  My shyness had evaporated almost immediately, like I had some kind of social advantage now.  My cyberfriends had somehow materialized, and now were actual friends living and breathing in the same city and being Jewish in their own ways, like me.  I could tell it was strange for some of them, as well.  For others, this phenomenon seemed like old hat.  So in the end, I had an awakening experience last night, which is something to the effect of: this blogging thing is real.  It's serious business, and now I'm just really excited to be a part of it.