The New Face of Friendship by Andrea Downing

I’m dashing this off in the short few days between visitors, so you’ll have to excuse me if this post seems rushed.  The guests who just left included a fellow author and her husband, people I had never met in person but—at least with the wife who I’ll call A (changing the names to protect the innocent!!)—with whom I’d corresponded regularly for some time.  Some time?  I think it’s more than two years now.  For whatever reason, we’d never got around to speaking on the phone, never Skyped or Facetimed, yet knew what each other’s kids were doing, the foibles of neighbors, the illnesses we had, the traumas of too hot or too cold weather in our respective regions, and, needless to say, had repeatedly ranted to each other about the problems of being an author in this day and age and trying to sell books. So, when A arrived with hubby in tow, it was more like a reunion than a first time meeting, more like continuing where we left off than who the hell are you?  As A has written to me, it was “not at all weird because we exchange so many emails that all was as I expected.”

So this has got me thinking.  The way we make friends seems to have subtly changed or, if not exactly changed, found a new inlet.  It used to be that the bonds of friendship were forged in childhood, or perhaps in school as kids or outside the school gates waiting for our own kids, or maybe with neighbors or folks we met in a club or other organization, and through introductions or matchmaking. This still happens, of course, but enter the digital world with instant correspondence through emails, IMs, texts and so on, and bingo! We forge friendships with people we’ve never met, might not even know what they look like (since so many seem to use dogs or other family pets as avatars) nor ever hear their voice, yet somehow develop genuine rapport and bonds with them, travel with them through their ups and downs, highs and lows, and miss them when they don’t write.

Have we entered The Twilight Zone? What exactly constitutes friendship?

Through history there are tales of long correspondences between people who never meet yet seem to find common ground that develops a literary friendship.  And then there have been mail order brides who formed intimate relationships after the sparsest communications.  But this is now and I’m not talking marriage.  We are a wary, suspicious lot for the most part, used to taking every precaution before going out the door, ever fearful of hoaxes and scams.  Internet match-making is known to have its pitfalls, yet internet friendship seems to be alive and well, possibly because it develops at a natural pace with no objective other than sharing—sharing thoughts, ideas, news, complaints, rants, and information.  And if the chance occurs to meet up, or at least talk face to face, so much the better.

 For me, this recent meeting worked out very well and I enjoyed myself immensely.  As A said, there was no ‘weirdness’.  But I’m wondering what others have experienced in the line of internet friendship, and what those experiences have been?  Please tell all. There may be a story in it for me.
In the meantime, the story that was in me has come out along with that of one of my newly minted friends. If you're looking for your Hallowe'en reading, you could do no better than to get a copy From the Files of Nat Tremayne: Two Tales of Hauntings in the Old West by myself and Patti Sherry-Crews. Available through all good ebook sellers, and on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Files-Nat-Tremayne-Tales-Hauntings-ebook/dp/B0767HWT6S/  
The Wild West gets even wilder when Nat Tremayne sends out his agents from Psychic Specters Investigations offices in St. Louis and Denver. Across country and across time, these agents will stop at nothing to unravel the mysteries that beset poor unsuspecting ranchers and cowboys who have no idea what they're seeing . . .or not, as the case may be.
In The Ghost and The Bridegroom, P.S.I. Agent Healy Harrison is sent to Tucson to rid a rancher of the ghost in the bedroom interfering in his marriage to a mail-order bride. Healy doesn't think she's destined for romance--until she meets Pinkerton detective Aaron Turrell. But when their two cases dovetail, will their newfound love survive the ultimate showdown  between mortal and immortal.

In Long A Ghost and Far Away, agent Dudley Worksop aims to unravel the mystery of Colby Gates' dead wife. Lizzie not only seems to have reappeared as a ghost, but has time traveled from 2016 to the 1800s. Can revenge be had for her murder? And can the couple be reunited across country and across time?
These stories originally appeared in The Good, The Bad, and The Ghostly.