A Girl...

When Worlds Collide

Something very strange and exciting is about to happen. In approximately thirty minutes, my real life and my online life are going to overlap when I have lunch with Katrina, who I know solely from the Internet. We have a lot in common and she seems completely awesome, but as with any first meeting, there's a fair amount of nervousness involved. Nerves and excitement. Meeting someone is always a big deal for me because I'm horrible at small talk and my biggest fear is being misunderstood, even though I always get along fine and hardly ever make an ass out of myself in front of virtual strangers. It seems, however, that hanging out with someone I already know a lot about makes it different than meeting a real, honest-to-goodness stranger. I don't know if the fact that our interaction thus far has been of the spilling-your-guts-and-laying-bare-all-your-insecurities variety will make it easier or not. While I feel like I know her, I don't really KNOW her, and discovering the balance of those two things will be interesting. The good news is that I'm more excited than nervous and my tummy is not in knots.

Next month, Gayle and I are going down to LA for a concert and while we're there we're going to meet up with the inimitable Will. I know Will a lot better than I know Katrina, but there's still a fair amount of apprehension surrounding the possibility that we'll be totally awkward and unable to hold a normal conversation ("normal" being a suspect word to begin with) and end up ruining our online friendship because we couldn't get our shit together in real life. Sigh. Why do I worry about these things? It's not like I have a history of screwing up. Maybe I worry because it matters to me that things go well. If I didn't care, this would not be a problem, right? Yes, that must be it. I freak out because I care.

Wish me luck.

Update [2:37 p.m.]: Katrina is just as cool as I'd hoped. Nice and cute and easy to talk to. Very easygoing, very chill. I have a feeling I haven't seen the last of her, and this is a good thing. Thanks for the fine afternoon, Kat!