Say hi to Meg
Meg and I should have never met.
Meg lives in Vancouver; the farthest west I’ve ever been is Tennessee. She’s a freelance writer; I schlep to work at a pharmaceutical publishing company every day – no chance we’d ever meet at an industry conference or something like that. The likelihood we’d ever be in the same place at the same time is almost nil.
So how’d we get to being in the same photo, all happy and lovey and whatnot?
Not too long after I joined twitter, I came across Meg. I clicked over to her blog, and was compelled to @ her with my thoughts:
After a few weeks of friendly back and forths, the DMs started. Then IM. Eventually, phone calls. Skype. Video chat.
For a while, we were no more than a Flickr photo or Twitter avatar. But we connected and got closer with each email and phone call. We learned more about each other.
Meg is amazing. She’s beautiful, whether in jeans and flip flops (she LOOOVES the flip flops) or in a black cocktail dress. She’s smarter than just about everyone I know; she’s random on Twitter only because she can (and does) talk about anything. She has the biggest heart ever; her desire to help any and everybody is amazing.
And her writing? Blows mine away. Yours too – you should hire her.
And with those phone calls, the phone bills. No cell company has unlimited calling to Canada (or to the US, in Meg’s case), and we’re both away from home too much to rely solely on Skype. In the last 6 months, we could have each bought new MacBooks.
Finally, just a couple weeks ago, after 10 months of talking Meg flew to Boston and we “met” each other for the first time. After about 5 minutes of awkward giddiness at the airport, we were normal, as if we’d known each other for ages.
For ten days, it was life-with-Meg. Going on random walks and talking lots of photos (Something I already do). Cuddling on the sofa to watch the debate. Beer, wings and football. A couple things were out-of-the-ordinary: dinner at Radius and the SM4SC event. I got a taste of life will be like with Meg when we eventually have a life together.
Why were we so comfortable, so quickly?
This, on a very personal scale, is the power of social media. The tools of social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) introduced us into each other’s worlds. It allowed us to learn and share things about one another.
Think social media is useless? I can honestly and confidently say social media made my life infinitely better. Thank you, Twitter.
Oh, and those phone bills? That’s okay, each phone call is an investment in something much bigger than anything that laptop can get me.
Which is interesting, since it’s this laptop – and the social media sites we frequent – that helped get me Meg.
