WayNeW mentioned (post 12) that we have “known” each other online for a while. I first “saw” him on the RTDISC sometime in the spring of 2000 and we exchanged e-mails for the first time on April 23, 2001 (I keep all my old e-mails, hehe). Wayne and I have bumped into each other here and there on various lists and now we are both stuck in blogdom.

Hmm. Internet friends. I’ve come to know various people online since I got my first connection on October 7, 1997, but internet friendships seem doomed to impermanency. I’ve known Martin and Steinar the longest (over 20% of my life!) and have exchanged hundreds and hundreds of e-mails with them. Most of the correspondence was back when I was still a student with unlimited free time on my hands. We don’t write so much anymore, but we still keep up. I owe them a lot in many ways, among which if it were not for them, I probably would not have understood my apologetics classes very well. <grin>

Christopher — Illinois — October 8, 1997 ~ present
Actually, he’s not exactly an internet friend because he’s my cousin and we’ve been very close friends since babyhood but I’ve exchanged more e-mails with him than with any other friend I have. Hm. I have not been writing to him at all recently … and I don’t think he reads this blog.

Martin — Switzerland — January 28, 1998 ~ present
In the beginning, Martin helped me a lot with my Latin studies, giving me homework and sending back the miserable results with lots of detailed corrections. He was incredible patient. We used to do a whole lot of discussing/debating, some of it very heated, though I think most of the heat was on my part, LOL. Since then, I have met him, his lovely wife Laurence, and their super-baby Tila/Leandre twice when they were here when they were here visiting Laurence’s family (she’s half Japanese).

Steinar — Norway — since March 9, 1998 ~ present
I looked at the beautiful pictures of his arctic adventures (written in Latin) and wrote a short note. He answered. That was the beginning. A lot of discussions/debates ensued. That was the middle. Now, I don’t write anything and feel really bad about it. I wish he would start blogging.

Joshua — Ohio — October 1, 2001 ~ present
We’ve gone at it, hammer and tongs. It’s been edifying, I hope, and great fun. Why is it that all I ever do is fight with my friends? LOL.

I didn’t mention any blog-only friends up there because it’s been less than a year since I’ve started blogging and because I know you guys more through your blogs than through personal correspondence, but it’s been wonderful to meet all of you and finally find a little corner of the internet where I feel like I belong.

When I first started blogging back in March, I never knew there was even such a thing as Reformed blogdom (I started blogging for friends and family I wasn’t writing to as faithfully as I should have been). The first blogger to blog me was Rick (of course!!), on May 14, 2002 and the first blogger I got an e-mail from was John, who welcomed me to blogdom and told me about Sensus Plenior on May 15, 2002 (my birthday!).

OK, Jon, now you can go ahead and steal my identity.