Meeting Jamie Again, After Eighteen Years

July 27, 2023

I got a random message (through Instagram) from my friend Jamie, letting me know she would be in Chicago for a few days. “Friend” is an interesting word here. Jamie and I have known one another for a very, very long time. “Know” is also an interesting word here, as we met over two decades ago… back when we were both Flash animators and the Internet was just this very fledgling, shiny new thing we were all trying to figure out.

Back then, the two of us were on various Flash forums: were-here.com, then were-over-there.com, then twelvestone.com. This was the heady, early days of the Internet when there was a lot more discovery and serendipity, and markedly less shouting.

Back then, my online name was “Portnoy” and hers was “rypunked.”. The two of us would talk through Instant Messenger (though I distinctly remember using an app called Trillian, that aggregated MSN, AOL, and ICQ all together. Yeah, right?).

Despite all this time, I only met Jamie in person once: back in 2005, when I was visiting Stu in Portland and hung out with her for an evening. Sadly, I have a bunch of photos from that night, but never got around to posting much from that Portland trip.

Here’s a photo of us circa 2005, in Portland.

Jamie ended up moving to Amsterdam in the past few years… and when Liz and I were there, we tried to connect. Unfortunately, our schedules didn’t work out and we didn’t meet up… but we did get a pretty great recommendation for a cafe (with solid coffee and apple pie).

Fast forward many, many years later to Chicago, 2023. We chatted a bit on WhatsApp (I had to download WhatsApp for the first time), and made plans to meet up at City Winery (on the Riverwalk).

Fun detail: this was also the spot where I met up with Scotty and Laura (and a few other online friends), back in 2015. We all used to run around together, online, back in the day.

Me and Jamie, some eighteen years since we last met in person… and over two decades since we met online.

The two of us got to catch up a lot, talking about our lives and our families, living in the US as well as in the Netherlands. We chatted a lot about our early days online, and the ragtag bunch of folks we knew from the Internet circa the early 2000’s.

I made my usual joke about how I refer to all my early online acquaintances as “imaginary friends” that live inside my computer (Jamie being one of them). I do feel very lucky to have met so many of these fine folks in person, and how we sometimes manage to reconnect, despite the distance and the technology and the years.

When we first sat down for drinks, we greeted one another. But I joked that I really didn’t know who Jamie was. Which in some ways was very true. I knew the Jamie from the Internet some twenty years ago, but a lot has changed in that interim.

I’m happy to say that we had a lovely time catching up, and we got to learn more about one another and one another’s lives, since we last met and talked.

Here’s to the early Internet, and to meeting good people by chance and luck. And through chance and luck, having the opportunity to reconnect with them so many years later.