Credit: SomewhereinAK

Before the 2010 trip got canceled, I blogged about how it was a social media experiment that was going to push the personal boundaries of our online relationships.

You see, 2010’s roadies were all mostly people who know each other more online and less in real, physical spaces. So getting on a bus together for 3 days meant forcing ourselves “to connect with each other on a much deeper and [...] nuanced level, and confront how we all have interests and perspectives that are completely alien to one another — and have nothing to do with the internet.”

Well, the other day, Julien Smith asked a series of (what I think are) important questions regarding our online relationships:

If I know someone from the web, why are they on another level than a regular friend? Why aren’t they really in the circle until much later? Am I feeling them out, or do I not want to owe them– even for something so inane as walking down the block and moving a couch up a flight of stairs?

And as he goes on to point out, as online social networking becomes a bigger part of how we build relationships with people, we’re going to have to either push the boundaries of those relationships, or find ourselves drastically alone:

But something will happen if we are on the web all the time and this is the only kind of friend we have. If we can’t call anyone in a time of need, not only will we be very lonely, but our backs will hurt from moving a bunch of heavy stuff.

Personally, I think what limits our online relationships is that they’re based only on shared interests. The relationship I have with family, friends I grew up with, and people in my neighbourhood is that we all share living space. And I think there might be something in that shared living experience that makes it easier to ask them for a cup of sugar or help moving a couch.

So if we’re really going to push the physical and personal boundaries of our online relationships, we’re going to have to push them beyond the shared interests that binds them. We’re going to have invest in these people outside of conferences and TweetUps, and actually get involved in their lives in some way or another.

For this reason, maybe 2011’s trip (and yes, we’re talking about it) will have to last longer than 3 days. If we plan another RoadCamp, maybe it should be even more about the journey than the destination. Maybe it should be about taking time out of our lives to spend time with our fellow travelers, rather than just sharing a ride on the way to a conference that’s going to serve all of our mutual, self-interests.

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