Beach house babes

I'm at the beach house with thirteen friends from my internet community. It's been fun. I was actually a bit worried because I often need to withdraw when with a large group for an extended period of time but it's really been okay, even good, this time. I think maybe being in my own home instead of someone elses somehow makes a difference. But these ladies are also very easy to be around, and interesting to boot.
I wish I had more time to get to know them, individually instead of in large groups but I'm thankful for this. I like it when I meet someone and I think, "If we lived closer, she'd be my good friend." It makes me feel like there are undiscovered riches out there. Of course, interenet friendships are great, but for me at least, they still don't have the same commitment as a friendship irl. I can simply not log onto the interenet for days at a time. If I'm going through a rough spot, no one need know, and if it's a time I feel like I have nothing left to give, I can simply not engage. Life, at one time anyway, was not like that. Folks lives intertwined whether they liked it or not. Secrets were known by the family and the community and that carried with it both blessings and curses. Even enemies were familiar and there is an extent to which the familiar is comfortable, even if disliked.
But our world today keeps us at a safe distance from all but the most intimate relationships. To practice commitment is a discipline, not a necessity. I don't need, in a physical sense, any of these ladies, and so every day I have to decide, as do they, whether to make the effort to engage or not. Our lives don't naturally entertwine. In a place like suburban DC you see that so clearly. Even those you know irl make contact with only one facet of your life. Gone are the days of the local school, the community church, the small town diner. Instead we have a wealth of choices, each of which takes us into a different sphere of people. And though that gives us variety and the ability to find just what we want in any given area, it also robs us of the dimensionality and depth of seeing people and knowing them in the different aspects of their lives. And it seems to me that we are poorer for it.