The Truth About Online Friends

cool friends are everywhere... yes even in your DM's 😂

Apr 24, 2025

Mary-Sue and I meet in Paris in person for the first time after a year of Zoom calls and online friendship

You never know who you’ll meet on the internet. Sometimes, they become some of your best friends.

Yesterday, I looked at my text messages and realized the most recent three were from friends I met online—people who live in other countries, on opposite sides of the world. If it weren’t for the internet, we would’ve never “met.”

By now I’ve gotten used to the weird looks I get when I tell my family or friends that I’m going on a trip or meeting up with someone I met online. Truth is, that’s how I’ve met some of my greatest friends. Today you get to meet 3 of them.

Mary-Sue: From Instagram DM to International Art Collab

Mary-Sue and I’s friendship is rooted in art and creativity. She lives in the Netherlands and had seen the episode of Yes Theory I was in a couple of years ago, which led her to follow me on Instagram. A few months later, when I was in Hong Kong, I posted a story of Victoria Harbor at sunset. Little did I know that Mary-Sue saw the photo and was inspired to recreate it as a piece of digital art.

It wasn’t until I got a DM from her, just a stranger at the time, sharing how my photo had inspired her to draw it and had made a poster with it. She asked if it was okay if she shared it. I was in awe that a randoms stranger loved a photo of mine so much she made actual art with it. So I said yes, of course, and suggested the idea of a collaborative postcard that combined her art with my original photo.

In the following months, we designed postcards with her art on one side and my original photo on the other. We told Yes Fam members all around the world about it and they gave us addresses to mail them postcards. We sent out dozens and dozens of cards to people we didn’t know. It was really joyful when they sent us pictures of the postcards when they arrived. The furthest one I sent was to South Africa.

Since then, Mary-Sue and I have kept up our digital friendship. Last summer, while I was living in Paris, she even came to visit and we got to meet in person for the first time. We already have plans to meet up again this summer.

Nellie: A Discord Ping That Turned Into Real-Life Adventures

Nellie is another online friend, this time, someone I connected with through a Discord server. We were part of the same Creator Now cohort a few years ago, and one of the leaders put us in touch because she thought we had similar passions for travel storytelling and adventure. The first thing I asked Nellie was about a camera gear backpack haha! Nellie is half Iranian, half Danish, and was living in London at the time. We exchanged a few messages and that was it—for a while.

About a year later, we both coincidentally found ourselves living in Paris and decided to meet up. Instant friendship. We bonded over cameras, bike adventures, life as third culture people, and our shared love of dream travel, sitting together next to the Seine. Nellie and I already have a few creative projects we’re dreaming up together.

Reem: From Quiet Followers to Deep Conversations

Lol this is the only picture of Reem and I… a blurry video call. Hopefully we will meet in person very soon!

Reem also found me through Instagram like Mary-Sue, after seeing the same Yes Theory video. She related to my love of travel and stepping outside of comfort zones. But we didn’t actually talk for almost two years. We just quietly followed each other, watching each other’s stories and photos but never exchanging messages.

That changed last fall, when the war in Lebanon broke out. Reem shared a video about her hometown which was produced, coincidentally, by someone living in Austin (where I live). I messaged her about it, and that’s where our friendship began. Turns out, she was also training for her first 10K, and we bonded over running and chasing new challenges.

Reem lives in LA, and we’ve still never met in person. But we talk often—about sports, complaints about the lacking U.S. public transportation, about dream trips, and the challenges of finding true, genuine friendships as adults. Most recently, Reem told me she’s stepping out of her comfort zone and starting a Substack (yay!). She’s going to start writing soon so to be an early reader be sure to subscribe to her newsletter, Humanly Relatable.

Even though we haven’t met yet, we’re already planning a trip together this summer. So maybe our first in-person meeting will be in a faraway country. (Hint: It might be my sixth continent… not Antarctica.)

Special shoutout to my other online friend, Jhuma! Mary-Sue, Jhuma, and I often have video calls that span across time zones of Netherlands, India, and USA.

The Takeaway

So while online friends might sound sketchy (and don’t get me wrong, always trust your gut before talking to people on the internet), my experiences with these three have been some of the most joyful and meaningful.

But even if we’re in different time zones, on different continents, there’s no better feeling than knowing you’ve got good people in your corner, all around the world. Especially that you can count on each other and collaborate on cool projects.

Yesterday, while driving, a song, A-OK, came on with a line that really stuck with me: “I’ve been making some cool-ass friends.”And you know what, Imagine Dragons? I really have.

I’m proud and grateful to have these incredible, talented humans in my life. Most of our friendship has lived online, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

And maybe that’s the bigger takeaway: proof that there are good people out there. That cool-ass friends and beautiful connections can show up in unexpected ways. Even across screens and time zones. So keep showing up, stay open, and trust that the world is full of people worth knowing.