Talk to Me is a nice Alternet: Techsploitation piece on crossing between conversational media, which is a scary thing with which I've had only moderate experience, in spite of carrying on most of my interaction in a decidedly non-real frame.
The main experience I had was when I visited Kayman for real. I feel like I really shortchanged him and his flatmate of the time, since it took me quite a while to warm up to them (assuming I ever did, before leaving).
Plus, once you know you're going to meet someone, there are all kinds of niggling little truthful details you want all of a sudden. For example, real names become important. So do little reassurances of stability, like whether the person has some kind of tenable room-and-board situation. In the world of e-mail, we can be free of those concerns and just talk.
