How to Grieve for Online Friends You Had Never Met in Person

an article by Cindy Lamothe published in the New York Times [via ResearchBuzz: Firehose with grateful thanks]


When Kristi Pahr learned that a friend she had known only online had died, she felt that others didn't take the loss as seriously as if it had been a friend she knew in person.CreditCreditGillian Photography

Last November, Kristi Pahr felt both shock and denial after learning that her online friend of over four years, Amy, had died suddenly. She says she still cries remembering those initial days of grief. Amy, she said, “was a better, more ‘real’ friend to me than most people I know in person.”

Ms. Pahr, 41, a freelance writer from South Carolina, first met Amy through mutual friends in an online Star Wars game back in 2013. She fondly recalls a similar “geekiness” and love of fantasy novels quickly bonded the two. “We chatted every day, shared pictures of our kids,” complained about their spouses. And though she and Amy knew each other only virtually, their daily texts evolved into years of mutual support and understanding. “She encouraged me to start submitting my writing for publication,” Ms. Pahr said, “and was one of the only people I ever let read the things I wrote before I was published.”

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