quote:Originally posted by TRhit:
I define a friend as the one person who would get out of bed at 2 in the morning to drive me to the hospital or loan me his second car for the weekend---can you count 5 of them in your life---on that basis a cyber friend can never be the same--
I like the term "acquaintance" more
I'd call those those "brothers", and you're right, you can probably count them on one or two hands.
Friends are the next level. Since I've lived in the same area my entire life I have quiet a few and I would describe them as people I can share a thought with and know I will get an honest answer in return and also know they would go out of their way to help out if I asked.
Then comes "cyber-friends". This is a relativily new "relationship" brought on by our "virtual world". I think that we've seen that this relationship type has it's flaws with the perverts of the world, but with right format, it opens our lives to a more diverse population. IMHO, any means of dropping the blinders or removing the rose colored gasses with varied opinions from these "friends" makes every person more complete.
Losing members of these relatioships hurts if you have mutual respect. I think it's important that we never minimize the word "friend" regardless of its level.