dolorosa_12 | (Reply)

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Oh, this is interesting. I used to be terrible at making friends - fine at school and uni, and then nobody new for for 15 years or so, other than mildly cheerful relationships with colleagues and flatmates.

The internet has absolutely transformed this for me - and specifically twitter, which I know isn't your thing. I've made *so* many friends that way. Not generally people I have no connection with, but it's been a wonderful way of deepening conference/yoga hellos into something where you know enough about one another to share quite a lot. People can have terrible personae, and be utterly fake online, but it's hard to do that under a consistent account for a long time among people who do know you a little bit. I've gone on holiday three times with people I know 97% through social media, but with just enough reality that I know they are for real. It's always been excellent. And some of them have been rocks in this last year, whereas people I know through more conventional routes haven't all been great. I guess it helps to skip those middle phases of "person who seems pleasant but is there a terrible thing I have yet to discover"?

I think you're right about the need to get to a shared sense of values. It builds warmth - not that you have to share everything, but you have a bedrock of comfort in their company. (One of the few genuinely good things about the last few years has been anyone who I knew in June 2016, I know whether or not we have some basic worldview in common.)