I seem to have three groups of friends.
1. My Mummy friends. This is a very small group of people who I care about very much and we all have the shared interest of having children of almost the same age. Our husbands all get on with each other and have become friends as well and it is probably my most favourite group of people. I see them weekly or two weekly and we chat a lot on text or WhatsApp as well.
2. My other friends. These are people that I have either been friends with since school or know through the drama group or work. This is once again a group full of awesome people but we don't really tend to see each other that often and we also don't really talk that often. It tends to be messages or comments on Facebook or the odd text every now and again.
3. My online friends. This group of people were my online friends until I went to BML a couple of weekends ago. We had been talking on twitter and WhatsApp for over a year after meeting through a mummy blogger twitter chat and to be honest, I probably talk to this group of girls more than I talk to any of my other friends. They are such a funny, caring, forgiving, honest and compassionate group and if it wasn't for the fact that we are spread all over the country (and even Ireland in someone's case...Hannah!) I am sure we would be soft play and coffee date Mummas that would see each other quite a bit.
What has been so strange recently is that my 'actual' friends are becoming less prevalent in my life. I don't think this is a conscious decision, more where we are all busy with our lives and work and kids. We do meet sometimes but it feels more and more like I am just communicating with them online now rather than actually talking and going into in depth conversations. It's just the odd flippant comment here and there and then we might arrange to see each other every couple of months or so. The opposite seems to have happened with my 'online' friends. I find myself speaking to these girls at least daily about everything and anything. We are already arranging when we will next see each other. It's crazy as these girls definitely know more about me than my 'actual' friends do and that feels and sounds a little weird to say. That's weird right? Well no actually, it's not. These 'online' friends are now my actual friends, the only difference being that I don't get to see them as often as I do my actual friends. In fact, I feel so lucky that I have such a wide range of friends and people that I care about. I have friends that I speak to of all ages (we are out for dinner with some friends who are 20 years older than us at the weekend), backgrounds and from all difference places. So from now on rather than refer to these groups as my 'online' or 'mummy' friends, I am just going to say 'friends'. My friends are amazing...every single one of them!! MWAH!!!!!
Couldn't agree me. I've done a couple of posts on this. Especially my Facebook friends one. I get 98% interactions on my personal page from bloggers compared to friends in RL. In many ways it's sad. Yet equally I love it. I don't think I've really made friendships with people like I have with bloggers. Online friendships are definitely as real. Also super great ladies you got there too. We all need blogging friends. It's great that we have people who actually care about us and from such a varied background. Love it. And a lovely post too!
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