THE INTERNET STRANGER

Iread Michelle’s work before I ever saw her. We have a few good friends in common and we’re both writers, which means we found each other online years ago. Since “friending” on Facebook, we’ve traded half a dozen emails – mostly about work stuff with the occasional personal note attached. We’re professional acquaintances, but rather than meeting at a happy hour or a dinner party, we were introduced via the internet. Although by most measures we are complete strangers, it feels as though I’ve known Michelle for a long time. In 2011, I began to follow her column about her long process of trying to get pregnant. “Hi. My name is Michelle Tea,” read her first entry. “I turned 40 this year and realised I forgot to have a child.” Lots of intimate details about sperm donors were to follow. From reading her memoirs and her status updates, I knew that she was in Alcoholics Anonymous, she had once been a sex worker and she was really into tarot-card readings and fashion. I saw her as a combination of a colleague and a wiser, older-sister figure.

We’d never met in person, though. It was supposed to happen at a literary reading two years ago, but she didn’t show up. “I am so sorry that I didn’t make it last night!” she emailed me the next day. “I spent the afternoon having contractions at the hospital and was sent home but didn’t feel like I was in any

shape to be out and about; a familiar theme these days. Anyway, Ann, I am so bummed I didn’t get to meet you in person.” I was bummed, too, but on some level I was also okay with it. I’ve met internet friends before, only to be disappointed when our Twitter rapport didn’t translate into real-time conversation. I’ve also learned a lot about false internetintimacy because I co-host a podcast called Call Your Girlfriend with one of my good friends and our listeners tend to feel like they’re part of our friendship, even though we don’t get super personal. You can share a lot of things – jokes, opinions, a sensibility, taste in emojis – without really getting to know someone. And I knew that I didn’t really know Michelle.

Months later, I saw on Facebook she was moving to my home town. I assumed I’d run into her at a party or a bookstore and we’d naturally transition from Facebook to face-to-face. But even after she, her partner and her son were all moved in, it didn’t happen. So we traded five or six emails to arrange a meeting, finally settling on lunch at a Mexican restaurant near her house. When the day arrived, I showed up in Converse sneakers and ripped jeans, wearing no makeup. It may have looked like I was trying to play it casual, but I’d just been running late and arrived in my standard writer’s uniform. Meanwhile, she arrived spot on time, looking impeccable in slim heels and a shift dress. It shouldn’t have surprised me because I knew she liked fashion. But as so much of her writing is about artists, addicts and misfits, I wondered, “Did she purposefully dress for a power lunch?” I never network over tacos. Maybe she saw this as a work meeting, not a friend date.

My fears soon faded. As we dipped chips in guacamole, we made small talk about her move. Then the conversation turned to our families – my parents and sister were arriving for a visit the following day and, I explained, I love them but we don’t have much in common. Michelle, it turns out, is the black sheep, too. Both of our families are more interested in sports than art. I told her about being dragged to sporting matches on summer holidays with my family and about the time a wayward ball nearly hit me because I was reading a book, not paying attention to the game. We agreed sport is pretty boring, but we can be convinced to attend a game or two with friends.

And, of course, the conversation meandered to work. She’s working on a tarot deck, a TV script and a new novel. I’m busy with the podcast and my weekly column. “Are you going to write a book?” she

“We talked for a while about my half-baked ideas and full-blown insecurities. In that moment, she was the kind mentor I had always pictured”

asked me. It was a logical question, but I suddenly found myself a little shy. Michelle has written five memoirs and a few novels; I, on the other hand, am still trying to figure out what I could possibly write a single book about. We talked for a while about my half-baked ideas and full-blown insecurities. In that moment, she was the kind mentor I’d always pictured.

The internet, I realised, is sometimes a perfect matchmaker. Building an online relationship first means you have enough information to ask good questions. And, because you’re strangers, you get to tell your stories for the first time and gain advice from a fresh perspective. It’s a little awkward, but what friendship isn’t at first? “If it was at all weird, it only speaks to the social anxiety so many people feel when meeting new friends,” Michelle later wrote to me. “Isn’t that exactly why internet connections are so popular?”