Ever since I was five, I had access to the internet. At first it was my mom’s old ipad, then as I became older, I got a Samsung S6 and used a big PC. Nowadays, I use a laptop and a Motorola. What all of these devices have in common is that over the course of my life, they helped me form relationships online. (Platonic and Romantic) For example, I actually met my current girlfriend online. She and I met on a game called After the Flash: Wintertide in 2022, when we were still both in Middle School. I was trying to find another friend of mine (who I unfortunately can’t recall anymore), and when I teleported to them in game, my girlfriend happened to be playing right in front of said old friend. From then on, my girlfriend and I would play together and text each other everyday, even to now. In addition to that, I have a large friend group due to another game called, Legends of the Aether. Yet, even before her and my current friends, I realized that I had also dated a few other people online, more than in person in fact. I also noticed I had many more close friends online in comparison.

As an article by the Medium called Love in the Digital Age: “The Rise of Online Dating and its Impact on Traditional Dating” puts, “In today’s world, finding love is no longer limited to chance meetings at the coffee shop or through mutual friends. With the rise of technology and the internet, online dating has become a popular way for people to connect with potential partners. In fact, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, around 30% of adults in the U.S. have used online dating at some point”. This made me realize that I’m not the only one who started to have more relationships online, and that it’s actually become more of a phenomenon. Although I am not an adult, I am still in some way part of the percentage of people who have started dating on the internet.

Of course, it isn’t just romantic relationships I’ve formed from the internet. I’ve also made countless friends from the internet, such as my current friendship circle that sprouted from me playing Legends of The Aether. In an analysis of teens and online relationships from Pew Research Center, they write “For today’s teens, friendships can start digitally: 57% of teens have met a new friend online. Social media and online gameplay are the most common digital venues for meeting friends”. When I met my girlfriend in After the Flash, I also met the people who would become one of my biggest friendship circles, a funny little faction called The Syndicate. We played together for a long time, going through many arcs and faction changes along the way. In a way, they also became my online family. One of the faction leaders, (who I will refer to by his character) Richter, introduced me to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure! Yes, the anime. We also formed another faction later on called Dahlia, which was a western town! One of my funny memories from there was being told “bc ya’ll have more chemistery than breaking bad”. (Yes, he misspelled Chemistry) Dahlia then led me to meeting with the leader of another in-game faction, The Palmettos. A rather fond memory I have is when the Palmettos hosted a Cooking Competition for our characters we played as, and our friend, (who we know as Pug) got disqualified for trying to “cook with a rat under his hat”. I also remember a random faction event that sprung up, where everyone changed their name to “[insert OC’s name]-eel”. This faction was even bigger by comparison to The Syndicate, and countless of my current friends are from there, not to mention a lot of my art portfolio has drawings of those people’s original characters.

As for my current friendship circle, they stem from Legends of the Aether. We all play together everyday, and met via the in-game school, the Arcanum. In there, I play an OC (Original Character) named Sora, where she goes on wacky little adventures with her peers in the magical world of LOTA. A particular incident I remember was when I was with my friend Broadway (who plays a character called Rikiel), and a random person trespassed into the Arcanum school. Rikiel was trying to get the person to leave, but this person wanted to perform a magic trick with an apple. I flipped a coin, and got heads for Sora being impulsive. She proceeded to eat the apple before this stranger could use it at all, which was pretty funny in addition to Rikiel simply giving up after Sora’s odd display. Even as I write this, I am speaking with many of them. (I love you all dearly!) They are the largest friendship circle I’ve had by far, and also have given me the most fanart for my own character! Of course, all of this goes to show that online friendships have started to grow in popularity. Even my own friends have a large majority of their friends online, or their closest friends are their online friends. As my friend Sun once wrote to me:

“Hey. It’s been almost a month since we started rping together and I wanted to ‘verbally’ say that I’ve had a lot of fun so far bouncing off of you as Voltaria :) Throwing around quotes and other little character things has also helped a lot with figuring out Voltaria as I’ve gone along and been a lot of fun :D (not gonna stop with this just letting you know how much I appreciate it :3)”.

It’s inevitable that as the world of communication changes, so will how relationships are formed. It’s wonderful that people can more easily find love more than ever, especially during what is considered a Loneliness Epidemic. I myself am deeply grateful for every single one of my friends, even the ones I may have grown apart from. Each of them left me with something, whether it be a learned lesson or just a few good laughs. I hope everyone could one day find someone like I have, and find their true friends, whether it be online or in person.

I’m in my bedroom on a fall afternoon, looking for my online friend at the time. (Who I unfortunately cannot recall the name of anymore) Luckily, my laptop wasn’t broken yet, so it was fairly easy. Although, I was new to ATF8 at the time.

So I tap “Join Game” and spawn in the lobby, before pulling up the in-game map and clicking on their little green icon. Instantly I was teleported to them, specifically them in a tree. I don’t exactly remember why they were in said tree, but I believe it was because (what I would later find out to be) The Syndicate was scaring their OC.

The first characters I saw were Richter and Percival, followed by you. You were playing Carmen Santos at the time, while I played Clovis. Clovis still looked clunky back then due to my shabby character designing skills, but Carmen didn’t actually look too bad for the time. We teamed up against a Giant Sandworm thing before Richter invited Clovis to join the fleet. I remember her (Carmen) being pretty silly at the time (as per usual) but I didn’t really think about it. Afterall, I suddenly was not only a part of a faction now, but a faction with many people who played with ATF, more friends than I honestly had at the time.

Frankly, it was as exciting for me as it was nerve wracking. Of course now though, I don’t regret it at all. I wish I could go back and find that friend, thank them for what they have unintentionally done for me. The joy they brought upon me.

I still think to this day about how lucky that whole interaction was, the timing. We both happened to be online, at the same time, on the same day, on the same server, that I happened to join my friend who also just so happened to be in front of you, etc.

Overall, just a very lucky situation. Yet, at that moment, the both of us had no idea about what we’d be.

We just met each other.