I call them "familiar strangers" -- like folks at the gym, who I have a speaking relationship with, know their first names usually (not always -- I tend to make up nicknames for people I don't know, verbal avatars as it were), but more than that, cannot say.  I know how much they can bench.

Another bit of that puzzle for me is verbal timing.  I wonder, if we all met in real-life, what our "timing" would be, and would it be in sync.  I confess to being fast with one-liners, but carefully tell anecdotes (usually giving too much exposition).  Would that work with... let's say Hagerman, whose sense of humor I really dig... when I READ him.  Would he work for me "live" and make me laugh as hard?

BTW, Kevin --

I think you're brilliant!

Those are interesting points indeed. I can remember the first time me and that Dutch girlfriend I mentioned (though friend and not girlfriend at the time) spoke on the phone. We'd decided upon a time and I believe she phoned me, seeing that the rates at that time was much more favourably calling from Holland to Sweden than vice versa. A bit nervous, and ertainly a bit odd hearing a voice I'd never heard before, but it only took a brief moment to adjust and realise that the person behind the voice was the same as the person behind all the e-mails, and then we just chatted away for some time and enjoyed ourselves.

Naturally, and as always, there's never a guarantee, but knowing somebody's way of thinking, sense of humour, likes and dislikes to different degrees, is normally a pretty good basis for whether or not you can enjoy each other's company.  Personally, I hope I'll some day make it over that wee puddle called the Atlantic, and when I do I hope to meet up with some of the people in here who's virtual company I've been enjoying so far, in the hopes that the actual company will be equally enjoyable.  :)

Puns to spit-takes -- this thread's got it all!

(btw -- before Juan grosses everybody out again, a "spit-take" is Brian spewing coffee out his mouth from laughing, not some gay-slang no one's heard before...)

Oh, I'm sure there's already a web page devoted to it...

LOL 

Your Mom rocks!

Moyer -- sometime in my late-20's, early-30's, my relationship with my parents changed.  Not a fundamental change, like a "we didn't like you/ now we do" kind of thing -- it was much more subtle than that.

My parents had us when they were very young -- my dad's only 24 years older than me.  By the time the three of us left the nest, my parents were in their late 40's -- and they entered a new, unexpected chapter in their lives: post-kids.

They were able to follow their whims a little bit (mom took up painting and water-aerobics instruction and dad started doing stained-glass, both of them began singing with the local "country show choir," that kind of stuff).  They had their own lives -- their "post-kid" lives.  They see us a couple of times a year, but all in all -- my sister thinks this, too -- they're pretty much done with us.  They've done their job.  They've been successful parents.  We keep in touch and have great love, but they do their own thing.  They've moved on.

What that allows, though, is for them to drop the facade -- the "parent" facade -- and we can be "people" together.  We can be friends. 

When I first started seeing them in this light, it was weird.  And it took some adjustment.  "My parents are PEOPLE," I thought.  "Normal, weird-ass people."

So, Moyer, congratulations to your mom!  She's taken a really important step.  Get to know her as a person, now -- I bet you find something to like!