the time I met the internet girls.

SO.

Nearly a month ago, a really cool thing happened. And it’s already been written about here, here and here, but I wanted to weigh in too.

A few months ago, when I saw on the Twitter that O was going to be heading from London to visit D in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks in June, I knew I had to barge in and invite myself along for the fun. So we picked a Monday in June that I would come into the NYC and hang with them for the day.

A few days before the visit, I heard from J, who said that she would be in Connecticut from Washington State visiting family the weekend preceding the NYC Tweetup, and did I want to meet for a drink? YES, PLEASE, I said, and couldn’t believe that in the span of 24 hours, I would meet three of my fave bloggers and Tweeters, a couple of whom live thousands and thousands of miles away.

AND THEN. J had the epiphany that instead of going to Long Island on Monday as planned, why didn’t she instead join me on the train into Manhattan so we could both meet up with D and O in Brooklyn.

YES, PLEASE, I said.

And then I got nervous.

I never did the Internet dating thing. I’d never met a blogger or Tweeter that I hadn’t already known previously in real life. I am such a tool, I reminded myself. SUCH a nerd. And boring! What if they think I’m cool in person? I’m NOT cool! Have I presented myself in a way that would make someone think I’m cool?

Well, no. There’s no way I managed to do THAT.

But I was, in fact, nervous. So when I pulled up to J’s hotel about 20 minutes from my house on the way to the train station in New Haven, I handled my nerves the best way I know how. With an intense case of verbal diarrhea.

I talked her ear off about pop culture and the 80s for the entire ride down to New Haven and the two-hour train ride to NYC. Poor thing.

Fact: J is awesome. And rad. And so pretty. And cool. And smart. And very stylish. And yes, I’m gushing. SHUT UP. There’s more where that came from.

After mostly-successfully navigating the subway system from Grand Central to Brooklyn, we went to our appointed meeting place to hook up with O and D and friends. So yeah, there we were, just scanning the streets looking for faces that matched the Twitter avatars we’ve come to know so well over the past year. And then we heard:

“Hello, Internet friends.”

Yup, there were D and O. And it was fucking awesome. It felt so surreal to see them in real life but yet so completely NORMAL. I have to say that the conversation (and ridiculous amounts of laughter over topics like DIABETES) started the moment we met outside the subway station, carried through our walking around looking for a restaurant, lunch, and park time, and didn’t stop until we had to head back to the subway and go home (Connecticut for me, Long Island for J).

D and O? Incredibly cool. Way cooler than me, that’s for sure. Sassy and intelligent and gorgeous and forces to be reckoned with.

Hands down, meeting those three ladies was one of the best days of my summer. And I cannot wait for it to happen again.