One of my absolute favourite things about doing this whole blog nonsense is that, as it turns out, there are a whole bunch of other people doing the same nonsense!

This came as kind of a surprise to me – I’d had a couple of blogs before, but they were really just outlets for me to rant about stupid, disparate, random tosh, so nothing ever really came of them. I never interacted with anybody; I knew there were other people who blogged, of course, but I sort of assumed everyone was just off in their own little bubble.

Then, somehow (I still don’t know how), one day when I was maybe a couple of months into Overthinker Y and enjoying having an outlet for writing and things, I got a message from somebody called Kim who’d stumbled across something I’d written. In fact, she’d found a post where I’d uploaded some music I’d created, and she wanted to use it in a video as part of her volunteer work with the awesome charity SpecialEffect.

From there, Kim and I talked a bit more about the whole blogging life and whatnot, and through her I learned that in fact there are all these other people who are just as odd as I am, and exceptionally awesome at what they do. That’s one of the best things about this community: you find people with whom you can be not only friends (REAL ACTUAL FRIENDS, just as good as any ‘real life’ friends) but whose work you can admire and be a fan of. It’s so cool to interact with people of whom you’re a giant fan!

Anyway, because of Kim I’ve met a lot of other really great people, and had the chance to do some sweet collaborative stuff as a result, but if I had to pick someone to meet in real life it’d have to be her, since she’s the one that introduced me to this world.

And oddly enough, last week I actually did meet Kim!

I just happened to be in London for a training course while she was in the same sort of area, so we got together and had a hot chocolate, and… I kind of thought it would be really weird, and in some ways it is a bit odd actually talking and being physically there with someone you’ve spoken to so much using written words, but pretty soon I felt like I’d known her for ages. It’s really weird, by the way, having these kind of chats out loud! I’m used to talking about people in the blogosphere and the kind of work and things people are doing online, but saying things like ‘hey, Athena Veta wrote some cool stuff about gaming psychology’ out loud is a little bit surreal!

Anyway, I have to thank Kim because if she hadn’t shown me this community, I don’t know whether I’d still be blogging. I hope I would, but knowing me I probably wouldn’t. So thanks, Kim. You’re a bit of a legend.

Naturally, we completely forgot to get a photo together, because we’re both terrible bloggers, but… basically, I just want to highlight that a) people you meet through this weird little online hobby can become genuine firm friends, b) if you ever get a chance to meet someone you’ve spoken to but never met, do it! (Unless you’ve spoken to them but don’t like them, or they seem like a potential axe murderer). And c) this community is awesome and I love it and even if I don’t interact with some of you as much as I should, I love you all as people very much and I am a humungous fan of the work you’re doing and you should never stop ever.