Knowing and not knowing

It's kind of weird reading all these SL blogs. Through them you kind of get to know people a bit and a get a bit of a sense of what they're like. Even the fashion orientated ones still have a bit of their personality showing. (The SL version of a VPL? Visible Personality Line?)

However, most of these people I haven't actually met yet. So I don't know them really. And they definitely don't know me. But how do I meet these people other than hoping I'll bump into them by accident in the thousands of sims around the SLuniverse?

I mean, I could IM them and compliment them on their blog, and an IM exchange could follow but that's still not hanging out and chatting and getting to know them a bit. I basically need to know when people are in world. But you can only see who is online if they're your friend (in the readily-understood interweb sense). And it's a bit presumptuous to ask someone remotely to be your friend just on the strength of you reading their blog, isn't it?

I guess that's why when I see someone come online (who is listed as a friend) I make contact kinda quickly usually. Depending who they are of course. Like last night. Melissa (whose surname always makes me think she's Canadian) came online so I nipped on over to her house on Whimsy (yes, yes, I know I should include a SLurl really) hoping she'd be home. I wasn't disappointed. There she was and it was good to chat, however briefly given the RL a.m. hour my watch was showing. She liked my shirt too :)