The Death Of Online Friends

Do we even know?

The other day I learned that a man I knew, and admired, died.

Almost a year ago.

I had no idea.

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

I’d never met him in real life. While I had thought that it would be nice to visit him someday, he just lived too darn far away.

We talked on the phone, and emailed. Not often, obviously, but from time to time. When something of mutual interest arose.

His friends, business partners actually, kept up his social media. There was no post about is passing. This makes sense, given that they are trying to keep the small business he founded going, it would be bad if potential customers knew that the man with the excellent reputation in his field was gone.

It was only through a random comment that I realized that he had died. Then I found his obituary. And then I found the auction catalog disposing of his belongings. A sad end to a really vibrant life.

But, it strikes me that it is just that way with people we only interact with online.

The first subscription I ever paid for here on Substack was for a lady in Paris. A truly superb writer who taught me much about writing with her words. I paid for a subscription, and then she disappeared for a year. I later learned that she got quite sick, became unable to write.

It’s like another friend that I usually encounter online once a week or so. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks. Is he OK? I have no way of knowing. No way of providing condolences to his loved ones if as I fear he has passed.

In the real world, we know when our friends die.

There is a definite end to what was before.

But our online only friends, well, sometimes they just sort of fade away, and lead us to wondering, and worrying.

Our world has changed in profound ways. I wonder sometimes if we truly understand how great those changes have been.