Do the 'communities' / friendships made here ever lead to face to face meetings outside of the Discu

lindaprocopio
lindaprocopio Member Posts: 1,980
edited March 2014 in Emotional Support #1
The 10 of us that have UPSC (a rare aggressive recurrent uterine cancer) regularly 'talk' on the Uterine Cancer discussion board about getting together in the fall when about half of us will be coming out of treatment and think we'll be recovered enough to travel. I love the idea of meeting the wonderful women who are sharing this cancer journey with me, but wonder if it will really happen. Will we all have the money to travel across the country after our medical bills, and will we really be healthy enough to go? Does it ever happen? Do you know if any of the online communities try to get together and really pull it off? I see how close the 'regulars' are here. I would love to think that somehow, some way, you would all get to feel the warmth of a real hug from your cyber friends. The friendships are very real; the cyber hugs are very comforting, but I'd love to think that I will one day meet some of you face-to-face.

Comments

  • MR_SAD
    MR_SAD Member Posts: 91
    What a great Idea
    Linda
    I agree with you 100%. If it was not for the Friends That have helped me thru all of this, I don't know if I would have mad it. I thank all of them. It would be wonderful to meet everyone Face to Face, To say thank you from the Bottom of my heart in person and give each one of them a great big hug. Yea even you Rick. I just don't think it is Possible. Maybe If one of us hits the Lottery and we could send everyone a Plane ticket. We could make it happen. For now I guess we will just have to stay here in cyber space and be good friends.
    Take care
    Floyd
  • blueroses
    blueroses Member Posts: 524
    Site/Individual Meetings from Online
    Hi Linda, I have been online for about 10 years now, off and on, and I know that there are many sites and rooms who do group meetings. Depends on individual circumstances of course with health and finances but it happens all the time online. Of course like any other meeting online you have to make sure that you are safe in a meeting situation, making sure all are who they say they are. It is always better to be safe than sorry on the internet. Hard to believe that some people take advantage of those in need emotionally or physically but it does happen so just be careful especially if you are doing a one on one meeting with someone you met online. Follow the rules for internet meetings, see them on webcam first, meet in a public place, always take someone with you or nearby if possible, and if you can meet in daylight, make sure you aren't followed home as well. Some even run police checks before meeting someone from the internet. Another good idea I have heard of is a cyber meeting of groups but with webcams and voice. You can create, or at least you used to be able to, a room or topic of your own with voice and cam and then others in the meeting join at a given time and date. Yahoo used to be like that but it isn't anymore, I would think though that there must still be sites where that is still possible if you look around. I don't know if MSN is like that or not. Anywho, that isn't a face to face in person thing but it makes it a bit more personal to hear and see the people at the cyber meeting. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth. lol. Take care. Blueroses.
  • terato
    terato Member Posts: 375
    Six degrees of separation
    Linda,

    Just like we knew each other from the PND discussion board long before CSN, we never really know if and when we may encounter one another in some other "flesh" or "cyber" venue. Just this week, I learned that "hollyberry" is a fellow Illinois resident, with an equal contempt for "our" state politicians. For all I know, we may meet at a polling place during the next state primary? The older i become, the more I realize that we all know each other through someone else and it is only a matter of time when we discover our common link. Thanks to the staff at CSN, we have the forum to find out.

    Love and Courage!

    Rick
  • lindaprocopio
    lindaprocopio Member Posts: 1,980
    terato said:

    Six degrees of separation
    Linda,

    Just like we knew each other from the PND discussion board long before CSN, we never really know if and when we may encounter one another in some other "flesh" or "cyber" venue. Just this week, I learned that "hollyberry" is a fellow Illinois resident, with an equal contempt for "our" state politicians. For all I know, we may meet at a polling place during the next state primary? The older i become, the more I realize that we all know each other through someone else and it is only a matter of time when we discover our common link. Thanks to the staff at CSN, we have the forum to find out.

    Love and Courage!

    Rick

    I once beonged to a cyber garden club & we met at flower shows.
    Years ago when I first got the gardening bug really bad, I joined an online horticultural discussion board where everyone became fast friends. A bunch of us met at Hershey Gardens, and another subset met at the Philadelphia Flower Show. We all joked about being axe murderers, but we were all just a bunch of middle-aged ladies that like to dig in the dirt.
  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member

    I once beonged to a cyber garden club & we met at flower shows.
    Years ago when I first got the gardening bug really bad, I joined an online horticultural discussion board where everyone became fast friends. A bunch of us met at Hershey Gardens, and another subset met at the Philadelphia Flower Show. We all joked about being axe murderers, but we were all just a bunch of middle-aged ladies that like to dig in the dirt.

    meeting
    Linda I know of a host of folks on this site who have met and continue to meet regularly as a result of first conversing on this site. Some of them meet at conventions established for their particular cancers, others discover that they live in rather close proximity and meet for lunch or at rallies, and still others make it a point during vacations to stop in on the friends they meet here.

    So it is definitely within the realm of possiblity. Where there is a will, after all, there is a way.

    Best wishes with those plans.

    Take care,

    Joe