Part of the fun of attending SCBWI last summer was meeting so many of my blogging friends in person. But I wouldn't want to date any of them How cool that you actually fell in love with someone you met online!

I haven't actually met up with anyone from the internet since high school, but I dare say I just might get into it in the not-so-distant future.

I met my partner 30 years ago, the old-fashioned way. (At a party: I had bourbon and no cigarettes, he had cigarettes and no bourbon. We have both reformed since then, I'm happy to say.)

But I have met online friends in person, many times, with excellent results. One private forum that started out devoted to Harry Potter "theorizing" has ended up, six years later, as a place just to hang out and talk about life in general. A group of us met at Niagara Falls a couple of years ago–some from England, one from Japan, others from the US and Canada. Members of the Class of 2k8 organized a joint book tour in Massachusetts. I had lunch at ALA with fellow bloggers at The Enchanted Inkpot, and just collaborated on a library conference panel with a fellow Inkie. And they're just as cool in person as online!

I've met tons of online people, some of which I dated, some of which I'm close friends with, and a few that made me say, "Okay, THAT wasn't what I expected."

Also, I've been reading Janice Hardy's blog for a while and recently got to meet her in person – she even called me out in a panel when someone asked about how to meet other writers, saying, "Sarah is a blog reader of mine, actually and we just met for real." We're not 'friends' per se, but it was fun too.

I met a good friend through the (I'm about to confess to my utter geekiness here) RA Salvatore fan forum years ago. I also met some of the folks I played WoW with (did I mention my geekiness?), though I haven't kept in touch with them (I gave up the addiction a while back).