Caring for someone you have never met - The weirdness of online relationships

I think that one of the most amazing things about social media forums, such as twitter, is that I have truly come to love and care about some of my "online" friends which I have never met in person.  It is so odd, and I think that people who are not forming relationships online cannot understand it. I can barely understand it myself as I come to care for some people more than I care for people I know in person.

I am very open about nearly everything online, very different than I am in person.  I speak about my mental health, migraines, chronic illness, family, fashion, friends, food and much more openly and honestly.  The people that I communicate with online, through twitter, for the most part have a common link to me.  We have a common interest or else we would not follow or interact with one another.

Where it has become very evident is with people that I interact with regularly, everyday, on twitter.  I miss them terribly and worry about them when I do not hear from them for a day or when I see that they are having a bad day.  It becomes particularly evident with my "Mental Health" crew.  I care about many of them as if they are my family.  When we have bad days, it can lead to things like suicide, harming ourselves and seclusion....this is when I get nervous and motherly and worried.  I feel like I have no control over helping the person at the other end of the tweets and no way of checking in.  A very weird feeling, patiently waiting for them to check in and let me know that they are ok, so I can breath a breathe of fresh air.

I am thankful for all these new and wonderful "virtual" friends.  They are closer to me now than some of the friends I have known IRL (in real life) my whole life.  They know more about what has been going on in the in the last little while and they are able to tolerate the fact that I am bat shit crazy.  I owe them a lot. Thank you one and all.

I will continue to seek out opportunities to meet them in person and to find out who really is the man/woman behind the funky picture of a sea monkey on their avatar.  I believe they are fabulous in person too.  For the mean time, I will continue to send virtual hugs, kisses and worry when you say you are having a bad day, going to seclude yourself for days and choose to ignore me, that's just what friends do.