That Time I Didn't Get Catfished

I planned on posting this sooner, but I have been sick the last couple of days. I either caught a stomach bug or ate something rotten, and it put me out of commission! I could barely muster the energy to walk  around the house on Monday, but I did feel a lot better by Tuesday. I am just really grateful that I only get sick once in a blue moon because if I had to deal with sickness frequently, I would be miserable! Especially sickness of the stomach variety (YUCK). 

On to happier things now...

About a week ago, I moseyed on up to Nashville to meet a few friends of mine. This was a unique gathering as I had never met these girls in "real life." We only knew each other through online interaction! Devin and I are both Etsy sellers, so that is how we first connected, and Lena is a friend of Devin's from college (I think). They also had their friend Elizabeth with them. Since I had never met them in person before, Alanna decided I was going to be Catfished, which turns out wasn't the case. I didn't really think that of course because Devin and I have been friends for a long time now! It was so much fun getting to hang out with them. I wish more of my Etsy and Twitter friends were around here so we could hang out more often! This makes five of my online friends that I've gotten to meet in person: I got to meet Ashli when we ran in the same race last year, then I got to meet Cristy when I ran into her at Disneyworld (that was CRAZY bumping into her among so many other people...what a coincidence), and Kaelah who lives in Nashville so I've gotten to meet her a couple of times. 

I'm always so nervous meeting these girls, because I don't know if we'll hit it off as well as we do online. I feel like I have a different personality online because I can leave out my awkward silences and all those times when I stumble over my words and get stuff stuck in my teeth. All the things that make people think I'm weird, yeah I can just edit that out online! Despite my reservations I've always really enjoyed the physical company of my online friends. None of them seem any different than I imagined them, which reassures me that I'm probably what they expected too :)

 Lena/me/Devin - Elizabeth/Lena/Devin

We met up at Copper Kettle for brunch, which turned out to be AMAZING. I've never been, probably because the buffet is like $20, but it's totally worth it. I put away some food, let me tell ya. They had just about every delicious food you can imagine! I think I had to actually waddle back to my car.

Devin/Lena - adorable Devin 

They went on some other adventures after brunch and we met back up for dinner at The Pharmacy in East Nashville, which I'd been itching to try. It didn't disappoint! I wouldn't go so far as to put it on my favorites list, but it was an enjoyable meal. It was a lot of fun getting to chat with these girls and hear about all of their Nashville adventures. I know it seems weird to some people to have "online friends" but I guess I've just gotten used to it. It sounds pretty awful to say this, but it's actually a lot easier to maintain a friendship with someone you only know online. Not that those friendships are as rich and dynamic as the friends I have here in town, but I have a lot more interaction with the people I chat with daily on Twitter. Luckily some of my local friends are on Twitter, so I get the best of both worlds! 

While Lena, Devin and Elizabeth were exploring Nashville, Alanna and I did what we do best: photo booths. It's really stupid how much money we've spent on these things. This was actually a pretty bad showing of our skills, but I think we got one or two good frames out of it. We definitely did better once we brought the props into the mix. The one at the very top left is my favorite. The thing just started taking them and didn't give us any warning! 

So that's my story about the time I didn't get Catfished. Have any of your gotten to meet any online friends in person? Hopefully you had as great of an experience as I did!