A while back I wrote a post about the main differences, in my eyes, between in-person and remote work.
I touched on how social the office can be and how it's a great place to network and build relationships, which is still very true.
But then I started thinking about my own experiences of making friends at work and how many of my closest friendships that started at work were remote first.
Let me share how my online friendships became real-life friendships
It was 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Back then, I was working for the first time at a start-up, which was focused mainly on supermarket online shopping and delivery. The company had just launched operations in my country and up until the pandemic, the growth was somewhat small but steady.
As of March 2020, the demand went through the roof and more people were needed to keep the operations going smoothly.
Back then, my team was just me and my boss and we would work together remotely as she lived in Chile. We started getting close and she asked me to help her with the new hires.
A few months went by and we grew more and more eager to see who actually was on the other side of the camera of our everyday calls. I met one of them in a Starbucks near my house and we got back to work together for the rest of the day, gossiping and getting to know each other in between meetings and tasks.
Our boss and her husband came to live for one year in the same city we were in, as she got to be in charge of the country's operations for small stores.
In 2021, as the pandemic was still happening, we decided that, as none of us were seeing anyone during the week, we would meet on the weekends at someone's house, have drinks, and chit-chat to our heart's content.
Nowadays, I confidently say they are some of my best friends in life.
What did I take from that experience?
Connecting with people, in any way shape, or form is valid. There is no reason why a relationship that started virtually shouldn't be as valuable as those created in person, as long as there is genuine connection and interest from both parties.
Long-distance relationships have this as a strong premise, as they should.
I feel that the friendships I made during the pandemic were, from the very start, more open to all of us being vulnerable, whereas some of my other ones were eased into that.
The lack of need to be impressive, and make good first impressions, in my case, worked out for us. We already had things in common, we were already talking every day and there was already care involved.
When getting ready to meet one of the girls at Starbucks, I remember putting on a high-heel boot not because I wanted to show off or anything, but because I knew my friend was taller than me and I wanted to look her in the eye when chatting.
The online world can be dangerous and uncertain, as we all grew up hearing. But it can and should also be a place to meet people with whom we wouldn't have the chance to connect otherwise.
For me, that has been especially true regarding work, as I only continued working remotely and meeting people from all over the world.
So can online friendships become real-life friendships? Yeah, and I guess I'm an optimistic when it comes to this subject. What about you?
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