The Internet has changed the world; drastic changes that we have all slowly become accustomed to. One of the biggest changes is how people communicate and how they determine and define the meaning of the word “friend”. A friend used to be a person that someone would get to know in person, most likely have common interests, someone to spend time with and talk. Now, if a person states that they are meeting their friend online to chat, no one shrugs a shoulder. It has become common place for people to call others that they have never met, that they never will meet, that perhaps live half way around the world: their friend. The meaning of the word is changing, it is now considered normal to have a non-personal friendship.

Some people may argue and say that they have true friends on the Internet; with the definition of the word changing and a “friend” meaning someone that you communicate with, this may hold true. However, it is indeed a non-personal friendship. When two people connect online, there will always be certain boundaries that keep the connection a non-personal friendship.

Chatting with someone online, no matter how often it is done and even if it is done with the use of a web cam, the relationship will always be a non-personal friendship. It is absolutely impossible to truly know someone until you spend time with them in person. Even people, who connect in person, need to spend a lot of time together to really know each other. Keeping a connection online cannot produce any other than a non-personal friendship.

To have an intimate friendship, you must be able to see that person in every light: when they have just gotten home from work and are tired, when they are angry, when they are walking around you and you do not just see them in a web cam. To know someone, you must witness how they react to many different situations. When chatting online, you will only see the part of a person that they allow you to see; you will never see the whole person. This is fine as long as people understand the boundaries of the friendship, as long as they know that it is a non-personal friendship. To believe it is more is setting a person up for disaster and disappointment.

If you do not know what facial expression a person makes when they are eating, if you do not know how they react when someone cuts them off while driving on the street, if you do not know how they react when told they did not receive a promotion, how they talk to strangers asking for help, what their behavior is when a person asks for money, and the list goes on endlessly: you will have a non-personal friendship.

A non-personal friendship is acceptable to have, as long as a person realizes it is not more than that. Some people, especially those who are lonely, find that they feel connected to people online and they become very dependant on the online friendship. The people that go online to talk, go at their convenience, they go when they wish to be online, they are there in a non-personal friendship aspect; and considering the form of communication, no more than that should ever be expected.