When our web time began we began to develop new kinds of relationships, we came across new kinds of people. People we would not normally meet in the street, at work, through family and friends. It was an exciting time. We *met* people in streets we’d never visited and people we had no previous connections with. We could track people without it being (too) creepy and feel we knew them. We got influenced by some of them. We ended up really liking some of them. Some of them even occasionally noticed us too. Over the years some of them we met but lots of them we didn’t. When we met these some of them some of them we got on with, many of them we didn’t. We often got disappointed and spent time rethinking what we thought about them. These knowing and following relationships went up and down, round and round. People dropped in, dropped out. Some grew really strong, some faded. Some went really wrong. The magnifying glass got bigger, trust waned and our cynicism grew stronger.
Are we more likely to like people more if we meet them in the flesh or is it preferable to keep them safely at an avatar distance? How long do web heroes last?