I have a confession to make. This shouldn’t worry me since I have admitted it to other people and not had any problems. I just feel so self-conscious whenever I come out and say it. I have Internet friends.

There, I said it. I feel better now. I can go on feeling just as confident about myself as I did before I said it.

I can, right?I didn’t set out trying to develop meaningful friendships with people I met through online bulletin boards. But I had didn’t like my last job and had a lot of time on my hands and liked to discuss sports, especially soccer.

The next thing you know, I’m trading Christmas cards with these people and meeting them at soccer games so we can drink and talk (really talk, not just type things) and get to know each other better. I have even been to two weddings featuring my Internet friends.

One of those weddings was a couple in D.C. that I met through message boards, but hung out with many other times. The other wedding was in Ohio and featured a whole table of Internet friends, two of whom I had not met in person before that weekend, but felt I knew pretty well.

The thought of people who have met on the Internet might scare some people, but I tell you, we were some of the most fun people that weekend.

I went to visit the couple from that wedding over the weekend. I had planned to go see a soccer game in Columbus, Ohio, so made room for a quick trip down to Cincinnati to have some fun.

I had trouble coming clean to my wife when I first started making plans to hang out with these guys and gals a few years ago. I didn’t want her to think I sat in front of the computer chatting with a bunch of deranged individuals. The first time I got together with a bunch of the ones from outside the D.C. area, I kept reminding her that my brother and his family were going to be there also.

Over time, I have taken part in many other get-togethers and slowly, but surely accepted my fate as a guy with Internet friends.

There was the U.S. Soccer game in Washington where we endured the worst-ever lounge singer in the hotel bar after the game. Then there was the game in Alabama that i couldn’t go to, but I feel a part of because I made a two-CD mix for friends driving to the game.

And all of this is because I liked to fill the gaps between work at my last job with chatting about my life.

That’s why I feel the need to come clean and admit that I have Internet friends. I guess I worry that this admission would lead people to believe that I don’t have any “real” friends. These friends are as real as anyone else. I just don’t see them in person very much.