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My ex-roomie, PAA had been taunting me for quite some time after I bought my car in late March. Earlier I hadn’t visited him citing transportation problems but now I had no excuse. But like I always do, combining multiple purposes into a single visit made my Athens trip a realistic possibility. It does occasionally land me in a mess but that’s nothing new for me. Apart from visiting PAA and taking my brother for another university-darshan, I had the rare opportunity of meeting someone whom I had only known online. Diya, a fellow blogger lived coincidentally in Athens and agreed to meet up.
Frankly this was my first time at meeting an online stranger, although I have had my share of online friends. I had to instantly block one such weirdo when she started emailing me sound bytes of lovey-dovey absurdities and even had the nerve to propose phone-sex.
But of course, blogger world is a different and more mature medium so I did not have any serious apprehensions. The guys at UGA mostly PAA and his roomies were flabbergasted upon knowing that I knew a girl from THEIR university who lived two apartments down the lane and had never spoken to before. Diya and I had a tacit agreement not to mention our blogging commonality but our common architecture background and Diya’s interest in furthering her academic pursuits in my field provided enough fodder for convincing the curious gang’s perennial question of “why the hell I wanted to meet this girl whom they never had talked to?” But getting back to the much-awaiting meeting, it was pretty cool and relaxing. Diya was extremely courteous in welcoming me in her apartment and a ready conversationalist. I think she painted a decent picture of me when questioned by Enigma although the whole exchange took place in Bong-lingo and I have no idea of what exactly transpired between the two females. But I know they mean well. I have a reputation for not portraying a favorable first-impression but I hope this wasn’t the case this time. Diya gladly accompanied us (an assortment of guys in all shapes and sizes) for lunch at a Cuban garden restaurant. Although being among the rest of people and the need to keep the existence of our blogs hidden might have been a hindrance but the conversation flowed easily as we talked about our architecture education, current academic state of affairs, city life, movies and other regular stuff that conversations are made of. We managed to make our world smaller by finding few common strands of acquaintances both in India and in the US. The meeting did not last long as PAA had to give us the regular UGA tour while I suppose, Diya had to get back to work on her thesis.
My impressions…hmmm…first of all, the first online-turned-real encounter was much better experience than the clichéd horror stories of “everyone is a dog on the Internet“. Somehow I had a different visual of Diya before I met her but definitely the real-world visual was much better than my imagination. She is an extremely intelligent, friendly, easy-to-talk to, mature and dare I add…pretty girl. But I guess most of this description is evident from her informal blogs that I love to read. She also has her own steadfast opinions which she is not afraid to express which makes it all the more interesting to converse with her. Although she seems to be at a critical juncture in her life now, she seems to have an pretty good idea of where it should be headed and frankly I appreciate that quality in people. That made me want to talk to Diya otherwise I can tune out people easily and can be brutally expressive in that respect. I am not sure if the feeling is shared mutually but right now, I speak only my mind. Diya, you are bound to read this and please feel free to temper anything that I might have glossed over or spruce up anything that I may have fleetingly mentioned. I liked the experience of meeting an online friend…and would surely do it again.
by Patrix | on Tuesday, July 29th, 2003 at 3:53 pm | 
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