Me with some random people off the internets. (I'm the good looking one)
Yeah. I know. It sounds seedy. Nontheless, I spent the weekend in Nottingham with a bunch of people that hitherto I’d only known through Facebook. From the looks I’ve had from most of the people I know in real life, that put me somewhere on the social rung directly between a paedophile and Bruce Forsyth.
I think that’s so much fucking hogwash.
Think of the people you know. You’ve probably got a small core of long-term friendships that date back as far as childhood. Along the course of your working life, you’ve probably accumulated a few people from each place you’ve worked and kept in touch with them down the years. And if you’re especially sociable, there’ll be a wider network of friends-of-friends, people from down the pub and the occasional nutter from the bus stop.
A site like Facebook works so well because you get to ‘meet’ people on a much wider basis than accidents of geography or employment will ever allow. If you end up working in an office, you might find nothing in common with the other people there other than the fact that you work in the same building. Sure, you might share a laugh and some in-jokes but that’s no guarantee that there’s any kind of connection that will survive your inevitable move to a different office.
In fact, there’s nothing intrinsically new about what Facebook offers. For years, people have been finding people with whom they get on sparklingly through messageboards and forums. Any specialist hobby or interest group has an online hangout which leads to group meetings in some pub somewhere. Life’s richer for it.
So I’ve found a bunch of people of a similar age and outlook on life (get pissed, be ribald) and after a year or two of knowing each other through nothing more substantial than inboxes and text, we found ourselves having a beer in a pub for real. Shock! Horror! The way I look at it, if you’re going to discount being friends with people just because you can’t actually physically see them, then that’s your fucking loss.
Dude, which one of your seedy Facebook groups did you meet up with? Please tell me it was the ‘In the Night Garden’ group, and you all shared horror stories of childbirth :s
Seriously though, I wholeheartedly agree with internet friends. Where else can you find people also interested in cats/aliens, AND serial killers?
It was totally In The Night Garden / Birth Horror related.
What about serial killing alien cats? If you like that particular scenario then you can come to the next meet-up.
So what did you guys have tying you together? A group, a fan page? Or did one person organise it?
Weird how it was just you 6… Just interested how that happened…
Bizarrely it was through a group dedicated to modern day kids’ TV classic “In The Night Garden” – which is a fucking trippy little show with this guy with a bent blue head and some tiny wooden Mexicans.
Anyway, it had a discussion forum which descended totally into outright filth somehow. Innuendo, off-colour jokes and the like. It reached the stage where the only people talking in the forum were us, which must have been fucking annoying for the other 11,000 members of the group, but tough shit!
One of them – the utter cunt known as Davey Grime – suggested that a meeting in a pub would be good fun seeing as we all shared the same sense of humour. It took about a year or something for everyone to agree a suitable date and place (we’re from all over the country). And to persuade our respective spouses that we would weren’t going to get raped/killed/mutilated.
After that, the rest was history….
in the night garden doesnt that have makkapakka in or as i like to call him mukki p***i.
It really did sound seedy when you told us at work though.
I wasn’t at all worried about Graham getting raped/killed or mutilated. He has excellent life insurance and critical illness cover…
And to be fair, I’m much more likely to get raped lying in bed with you.
It was seedy. Thanks to Carps
So you explained to some people that we all went to a town away from our respective partners, free to do what we would, freed from the shackles of familiarity and wedlock, got pissed out of our heads and cracked endless knob gags….and people looked like we were weird?
You know with some strange people my friend.
Also, without this meeting, the majesty of ‘Mongs On A Plane’ might never have seen the light of day.
Sounds like a lot of fun to me. I’ve heard a lot about this Night Garden show, I should really check it out. Or does being 25 and having now kids make that a little weird.
I notice you had a shave and put on a proper button-up shirt for the occasion. It’s amazing the lengths you will go to when meeting some potential serial-killing weirdos off t’Internet (searches in vain for ‘rolling eyes’ emoticon…)
I’ve just realised that I’m the only one of the seedy bunch not to have commented on this.
I just want to express my thanks to all of the boys for taking the effort to clean up and wear proper big boy shirts. Your wives would have been very proud of you. Even though The Doc wore his *only* button up shirt, Grime screamed whenever anyone was in the vicinity of his expensive shirt with a drink and it was noted that Carps wasn’t even sure if his shirt buttons did undo as he admitted to simply pulling it over his head like a t-shirt. Oh well … I suppose it’s the thought that counts.
By the way, Carps, don’t you think I get get a royalty cheque for the use of that photo? £27.90 should do it.
I don’t carry that kind of money – as well you know.
On the other hand, check this out! You were lucky this time… but who can tell what any future meeting might hold for you? Muhhahahaha…