I've never made a lasting connection with anyone I've met online. Not once. It's not that I didn't hang around on BBS's and IRC when I was younger, I did. And I

I've never made a lasting connection with anyone I've met online. Not once. It's not that I didn't hang around on BBS's and IRC when I was younger, I did. And I did meet people from there IRL, but no friendships formed. The whole concept just seemed (and still seems) alien to me. But I did have a point after the end of a 12 year relationship ended, around the time of the pandemic and lockdowns when I realised most of my old IRL friendships hadn't gone ... but those people had moved away, and we didn't talk as much any more. I still have old friendships with high school friends, old girlfriends, old friends from bands I played in from years past. But about a year ago in a particularly lonely and tragic period I started a pub trivia group on an unnamed IRL meetup platform, which has grown to over 300 members in less than a year (guessing a lot of those are bot accounts). About half a dozen core members that come to play trivia at the pub almost every week, and then another 10-20 that attend less regularly, rotating in and out. It can be hard work to build yourself a new social group, but it can be done, and I now consider I have some good friends that come out of it and there are friendships forming between members of the group as well. At 50 years of age, they're not the kind of friendships that I would count on to last forever, but they're there, people to chat with sometimes, people to catch up with for the odd drink or to go out dancing with. It can be done. And I'm much better off for it.