There are some colleagues I’ve been working with for the last year or so. We’ve all been meeting on Zoom once every two weeks, and sometimes more often.
You could say we’ve gotten to know each other, and have built a kind of rapport. But my entire experience of them has been on-line.
Until today.
We had an in-person meeting for the first time since the start of our collaboration. And that was the moment when we realized — really realized — that we had never been in the same room together.
And I was struck, all over again, about how there is just something so delightful about being in the same physical space. It’s not a rational thing, it’s something you feel at a deep level.
The world might be moving toward blended reality, but I don’t think we will ever quite erase the difference between meeting on-line and being together in person. And I think that’s a good thing.