Friends You Love Blog Hop - Hanging Out on Skype With My BFOTIs

<center><a href="http://www.friendsyoulove.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Friends You Love" src=""/></a></center>

The Friends You Love Monday Blog Hop was created to encourage us to reach out into our blogging community and get to know someone a bit better.

This week's guest is a woman I met for the 1st time at BlogHer.

You may know her as the voice behind the One2One Network blog and the author of Just Malia.

She has been an amazing supporter of the Friends You Love event, and her post today really hits a soft spot for me. Her BFOTIs remind me so much of the lovely ladies I call the Wonder Triplets.

***********
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” ~Dr. Suess

 That quote is an important litmus test for me when it comes to friendships. I don’t mind if people disagree with me on issues or beliefs, that’s to be expected in life. But friends will listen and accept and even disagree – respectfully. They won’t walk off in a huff or passively aggressively tweet their displeasure with my sentiments. And if what I said is offensive or mean or needs to be questioned, friends will do so – lovingly.

I shared during the Friends You Love Kick-Off party about the Skype room I’m in with my BFOTIs (Best Friends On The Internet). It’s been our “hangout” way before Google+ made “hangouts” cool. It’s a Vegas-style room – what happens there, stays there. Or more accurately, what’s said there, stays there. There’s often excessive emoticon use that make some of our conversations look like a cartoon convention. And of course there are the inside joke acronyms and phrases. Most importantly though, it’s our safe place.

The things we share in that room are sometimes things we can’t say to anyone else. As people who live out a portion of our lives on the Internet through blogging, Twitter use & Facebook updates, we’ve learned what we can and cannot say “out loud”. But there are times when we need to say them. Times we need to be heard. All manner of heartache has been shared in that room.

It’s also safe to be silly and happy there; to be proud and show-off our accomplishments. I have laughed until I cried and my sides ached from the goofiness we’ve shared in that room. We watch pregnancies progress, wedding plans come together, careers soar, and kids grow.

Many of the relationships in that room would never have happened if it hadn’t been for blogging. We are spread out from coast to coast but with a simple keystroke, we are instantly connected to each other. We need each other. The women in that room, they matter. They are trustworthy friends I can and do lean on. Viva Skype!

~Malia Carden is the Community Manager & Blog Editor for One2One Network. She has been a blogging since 2005, periodically reinventing herself so that she’s now on her third personal (and woefully neglected) blog, Just Malia. In 2008, she joined the editorial staff at Blissfully Domestic and is now a staff writer for the Food Holidays channel. She’s an avid reader, enthusiastic cook and baker, improving photographer and imperfect environmentalist. Married to her high school sweetheart, they have two children and live in Nashville, Tennessee yet none of them own a cowboy hat or a pair of boots. Her favorite word, however, is “y’all”!

 
***********