Schrödinger's Friend

Tracking backwards over several weeks. Tracking backwards through time. Tracking backwards to Orlando, Florida, where EduComm took place in the sprawling, almost frighteningly huge Orange County Convention Center, attached to InfoComm, which defies my easy description. A land of trade show booth babes and nerf swag and everyone and his mother showing off nearly identical large screen HD monitors and televisions. A land of panel discussions and presentations on the latest offerings and mergings of technology and education. Moodle was the big star of EduComm. Moodle, and apparently there is such as thing as "podcasting" out there.

But I digress.

This was an evening. In fact, it was Friday evening. EduComm was over. Two of our party had already left, flying back home. My Supervisor and I had decided to stay overnight that last night, rather than rush like Hell after the end of the Conference. And I was all for that, because that last night was my night to have fun. More to the point, it was my night to have dinner with an old friend I'd never met.

It's the era of the Internet, and these are recurring stories. We all have those friends we've gotten to know. Friends we know through message boards and instant messenger services and mailing lists and Livejournal. People we have slowly let ourselves get to know. People we like. People we consider intimate friends. We all have these experiences.

This friend I have known -- known well, I would say -- since 1993 or 1994. He dates back to the Superguy era. He's not the most public man I know, so I'm going to enpseudonymize him for these purposes. We'll call him "Clive Staples." Those folks who know him can work it out from there.

Please note. He is not in Webcomics in any way. He is not a regular contributor here. He is not famous or infamous on the internet in any given way. I am obfuscating his identity not because I want to create a fun game of "let's guess who Eric had dinner with," but because the experience I'm relating... well, has less to do with him than the experience, and because I'm respecting his desire for privacy. I ask, as your old pal Eric, that you do the same. And let us say no more about it.

We decided to meet in the lobby of my hotel. Now, this was a pretty cool hotel -- the Wyndham Orlando resort, made up of many small two story buildings on a resort complex with pools and other amenities sorted throughout, down on International Boulevard, which is something of a Miracle Mile in Orlando -- lots of neon signs and restaurants, stores and tourist traps. Not far away from Universal Studios, from Sea World, and from the Omnipresent Mouse. And just a mile and a half from the Orange County Convention Center itself.

(On day one, we were told it was "about fifteen minutes" away from the hotel, so we walked. It was very hot. And we were carrying computer equipment. It was a mark of personal pride that it was inconvenient and long, not a moment of horrific physical failure. I take the victories where I find them.)

So. I went down, about a half hour before we were supposed to meet, and I sat down in the lobby. I had a book, recommended to me by a good friend who's one of the best, most knowledgeable reviewers I know in science fiction and fantasy. The book was Vellum, by Hal Duncan, and it is indeed brilliant. (And that friend's own review of Vellum can be found here. Eagle's entirely right in his review, as he is in most of his reviews.) So. There with a good book, waiting.

And watching.

Hotel lobbies in Orlando are amusing affairs. Even here, in June, when it's miserably hot, there was the parade of families coming into town for their vacations. Orlando is enslaved to theme parks. Every restaurant, from the upscale (and weirdass) Salt Island through Perkins down to McDonalds has a "hospitality desk" staffed during all business hours, where discounted tickets to dinner shows, Sea World, Universal and the Mouse may be bought, and free shuttle buses arranged. They are as ubiquitous as slot machines in Las Vegas establishments, and just about as subtle. In the Wyndham Orlando, the desk called itself the "Concierge," but when I asked about a hotel service, the woman blinked blankly and informed me that she didn't work for the hotel and she had no idea what might or might not be available there. But, if I wanted to see Shamu the Killer Whale, she was my hookup.

I was opposite the Hospitality Desk, sitting, waiting for my friend Clive Staples.

There was a large number of high school students there. The Florida chapter of the Future Farmers of America were having their week long leadership conference at the same time as EduComm, and they were holding it at the Wyndham Orlando itself. Which meant during this scorching heatwave, there were piles upon piles of cheerful high school boys and girls... all in heavy, dark dark blue corduroy jackets with embroidered names and patches, and black slacks or skirts (girls also wore heavy dark pantyhose). I asked one of the girls if these outfits -- perfectly suited for doing outdoor work in October back in New Hampshire -- weren't beyond uncomfortable and into deadly.

She looked at me with the kind of pity I feel for Floridians in my New England homeland, the first day we approach 20 degree weather and they can't imagine it could be any colder, ever, and said "well, you get used to it." She wasn't even sweating. I, on the other hand, was wearing light colored shorts and a tee shirt and I was still pathetically glad I was waiting for Clive in an air conditioned lobby.

And so I waited. And I watched.

A man walked in. And I found myself wondering "is that him? Is that Clive?"

And it hit me. I had no idea what Clive looked like.

None.

Now, I don't consider Clive an "internet acquaintance." I don't consider him an associate. Clive is a friend. A very, very close friend. He was one of the first people I told when Weds and I went from associates to "dating." When I have depression, he's one of the guys I turn to. When I had my surgery, he was one of the last people I messaged. He has been there for me when I've needed a friend. I've tried to do the same for him. He could show up on my doorstep and I would take him in without a second thought. He knows my secrets, and I know his.

And like true friends, we have had knock down drag out fights, at least with words. We agree on a great many things and we disagree on a great many others. We feel passionately about the things we feel passionate about, and we don't agree on all of them. But he is intelligent and well thought out, and I respect him even when I disagree with him.

I'm in the acknowledgments in his Ph.D. thesis. Which I was very proud to see.

But... we've never actually spoken before this moment. We've only typed to each other. And I've never seen a picture. Of this specific coterie of friends, he's the one almost none of us have been in the same room as before. And there's never been any reason to discuss physical appearances.

It really sunk in at that moment. I don't have any idea what this man looks like.

I had preconceptions, of course. But they were vague, formed over long periods of time. Filling in gaps with assumptions which built on random choices my subconsciousness had made. I had my mental image of Clive. But that mental image had never been based on even slight bits of reality. I was waiting, in a hotel lobby, for a complete and total cypher.

Think about this, for just a minute. Think about the people who are close to you. Think about identity for a moment. I knew Clive. I knew his opinions, I knew his religion, I knew his job, I knew his attitude. I knew what he liked. I had bought him Christmas Presents. I had received Christmas Presents from him. I borrowed money from Clive once. This went way beyond any "internet friend" thing. I mean, most of my internet friends I at least had seen pictures of. In fact, a huge percentage of my internet friends were people I met at one time or another. In person. I know what each and every friend in common Clive and I have look like.

But not Clive. I knew everything in the world about him, except anything about his appearance.

A hispanic man of about the right age walked into the hotel lobby. Followed a couple of minutes later by a white man. And I honestly couldn't say that the white guy was a better candidate to be Clive than the Latino guy. We never talked about the color of Clive's skin. I had assumed he was white... well, mostly because I'm white. But there was no reason that had to be true, or even should be true.

Was Clive fat or thin? Short or tall? Handsome or ugly? I knew he was brilliant -- I've read his thesis -- but I had no idea if he could convey that brilliance in his bearing, or if like so many people he came across as intelligent when he had a chance to write things down but lacked any social skills. How would his hygiene stack up? Did he have any scars? What color was his hair? What color was his eyes.

Hell, how did I even know he was male? I've know girls -- especially in technical fields -- who adopt masculine identities online to ensure their gender wouldn't color others' opinions. It seemed fantastic to consider, but jeez louise, we live in a culture where Gender Bending comedies came out of the Shakespearean tradition and show up on a yearly basis often starring a Wayans brother.

It hit me, as I watched more people walk in -- in a lot of ways, right that moment, Clive was like Schrödinger's cat. He was Schrödinger's friend. He could literally be anyone. The only boundary was there was only so young he could be. I knew he had a Ph.D. I'd read the thesis. I knew he had been at least adult in attitude going back to '93. Beyond that, it was a clean slate.

I watched a man as heavy as I was walk in, in green shorts and a "Git'r'done" tee shirt. I dismissed him -- Clive wasn't the "Larry the Cable Guy" type. Or so I believed. I watched a handsome black man in a suit come in. It was a professorial suit. I weighed possibilities. I could see that, I thought. I watched a well tanned guy come in -- a real "Used Car Salesman" type. White trash. Young Republicans. Guys in Sears clothes. Guys in Abercrombie and Fitch.

It was like a game. And a puzzle. Would I know this man? Would he somehow feel disappointing to me? Would I be ashamed for not knowing more about him? And more to the point... would I recognize him? Would my complete and utter lack of identifying information mean he would seem anonymous to me, or would somehow our hours upon hours of conversation, of discussing, of argument and revelation somehow impart an ineffable sense of recognition upon me? Would I know Clive Staples on sight?

I wasn't worried we wouldn't find each other. As incognito as Clive has been online, I have not. Hell, he saw the same picture of me in a purple polyester kimono you all have. He knew what I looked like, at least well enough that I wasn't worried we'd pass in the night.

But it was a profoundly strange experience -- like no meeting of an internet friend in real life had been, up until that point. I didn't consider this meeting Clive. I knew Clive. This was just having dinner with someone I knew. It just happened that I had never encountered any means of identifying him in a police lineup before now.

More teenagers. More Future Farmers. Beautiful women in tube tops, sauntering to the Hospitality Desk to get tickets to meet Mickey Mouse. Powerful looking men. Small, humble men. Bent and sickly men, coming to vacation with their families. And me, sititng with a book I wasn't even looking at any more, trying to discern some clue, some magical mark that would scream "Clive" to me.

"Eric?"

I looked.

I considered.

Yeah.

"Hey," I said, and shook Clive's hand. I looked my friend in the eye. And whether or not I could have picked him out of a police lineup, I could see the man I knew back behind those eyes somewhere. "Hungry?"

"Starved," he said. And we headed to the door.

"You're in long sleeves and a jacket," I said. "Aren't you unbearably hot?"

He shrugged. "You get used to it.