When I'm dead, I want all my posts bound in a book and published.
I love all your posts, you guys really nailed it in your own ways. I've tried many times to write a book on this message board thing and it's too big an idea for me.
The stigma IS going away, and it's a wonderful thing, as well as an obvious conclusion. When only freaks and weirdos spent time on the net, saying you met someone there was embarrassing. Now that most people (in certain income brackets) have an online presence, everyone understands that the person you met online is just another person.
I believe our little board here is a wonderful case in point on internet relationships. We met on a larger board with a broader appeal. Those of us that stuck together and remained here have one huge thing in common - our posting ability. We all use punctuation, capitalization, and pretty good grammar and spelling. (Yeah, there are plenty of exceptions, but have you BEEN to most message boards??) We do a very good job of explaining what we mean, and most misunderstandings are cleared up quickly. To steal an analogy - we are the highly evolved versions of message board posters, and as such, we have survived for years in this same format.
Speaking of evolving - I feel like a chimp every time I need to text message on a phone, especially when I see a 13 year old blazing away on one. For the first time in my life, a popular technology seems out of my reach, but not because I don't have the smarts, but because the technology has splintered so much that I'm not a part of that side of the revolution. This tech thing has become bigger than anyone can really master, unless you're still a hardcore geek. Can you really be a perfect message board maven/text messager/console gamer/Warcraft master/digital cam wiz/photoshopper/manic mp3er/etc etc etc? A lot of invested time and practice is required to use all the myriad tech devices correctly....or maybe I'm just excusing myself from falling behind.
So what's the same......I'd say, finding people that click with you. Chemistry online is still chemistry, though a different kind of chemistry....but as we've seen, it transfers rather neatly to personal relationships IRL. Much like any pursuit that gets people together, posting is a great way to bond with people, and once you have met them IRL, your posting experience is greatly enhanced. I remember the early days of putting faces to names and then coming home to post and read - it was a heady time. It's still endless interesting to REALLY get to know people in person and see their posts in a whole new light.