The distance between me and my readers is the Internet. I can communicate with them and respond to every email I get or every mention on Twitter.
I'm dating my iPhone.
When I was in college, my high school best friend and I had a terrible falling-out. It was entirely because of Facebook.
I've heard stories of people, even celebrities that have gone online, pretended to be someone they weren't, and conducted a 5-year friendship via e-mail. Then, they got married because they really love each other from all that communication.
Online, you're providing each other with the good aspects of being together as far as communication and support, but you don't have to deal with the realities of paying bills together, or being annoyed when they leave the toilet seat up or don't put the food away in the fridge.
It's funny how intimate it feels to get a text.
I've never done it, but I think if you do a Google search for 'People who will help me travel across the country to meet my online love,' I'm probably the only person that comes up.
The digital world has allowed me a connection with my reader that I'd never had before. I didn't meet the people who read my material. The fan letters were mostly answered by professional people that'd done them for a living. And I didn't have any daily connection with their response to my work. I didn't have a relationship with my audience. And every artist should have it.
With the Internet, fans feel like they know you and I love that kind of connection.
When you have a lot of communication online before you go out with someone, it builds up a false sense of who the person is. There's a tendency to fill in the blanks with positive information.
Technology forced me to divorce a pixie and remarry a pixel.
