The Internet is a curious thing, as we all know. It’s given us LOLcats, cakefarts, puddingfarts (so I’m told… I haven’t dared look that one up yet), Twitter, Rickrolling, gayrolling, that kid throwing a WoW-related (fake) strop and jamming a controller up his arse, porn, dancing chicken man, leekspinning and all manner of other things besides.
The other thing it gives you is people.
As a kid at school, I often wondered what it would be like to meet people outside the local community where I lived. I grew up in a small village in the countryside that had a pretty close-knit community. You could probably name most of the local “characters” off the top of your head if you had a good think… largely because pretty much everyone got involved with everything. And, just to add to every country stereotype ever, there was even a semi-regular “village show” which was inevitably filled with middle-aged men and women making jokes that were smutty and/or at the local vicar’s expense. It’s pretty neat to see a close-knit community like that, actually, though I question how much it actually happens these days. It probably does, though I doubt to the same degree.
I remember when the Internet came to town, though. Or, more specifically, in the form of CompuServe, which wasn’t the “proper” Internet—that was a mysterious and difficult thing that no-one quite understood at the time. CompuServe was a window onto the rest of the world; people who were potentially far away that we all had access to for the first time.
CompuServe had one of the earliest chatrooms around—this was so long ago that the term “chat” hadn’t taken on the widespread meaning it had today. No, in keeping with the times (or possibly not), CompuServe elected to call their chatroom facility the “CB Simulator”. You know, because it was like CB radio in that you could talk to random strangers. Only it was completely different because you were just typing things.
I remember “meeting” a few people through this facility, with one in particular springing to mind. Her name was Julia, and she was from somewhere near Manchester. We got chatting and hit it off pretty quickly, and thus began a long campaign of emailing each other back and forth. I can’t remember any of the things we talked about—the usual teenage things, I imagine—but I remember that we were getting on well and it felt like we were pretty “close”.
So eventually, we had the opportunity to meet. She was going to Alton Towers with her friends, and as it happened, my friends and I were planning a similar trip. So we decided to make our trips coincide. I was pretty excited about the whole thing. She’d sent me a couple of (clean!) photos which seem to have managed to travel from computer to computer with me completely unintentionally, and she hadn’t promptly cut off all contact when I sent her a photo of myself looking slightly uncomfortable in a dinner jacket on prom night. Which was a good sign.
I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps it was shyness, perhaps it was the presence of all our other friends “cramping our style”, perhaps it was the fact that one of my friends was hitting on one of her friends (and doing quite well, from what I could tell), perhaps I wasn’t what she’d expected or hoped for (she totally was what I was hoping for, she was a hottie)… but we found it pretty difficult to talk to each other in “real life”. It was weird; we’d told each other lots of things, including plenty of “secrets”, but as soon as we were faced with one another it was suddenly like starting over… and it became a missed opportunity, sadly. We drifted off and lost contact after that. There was no “breakup” or words spoken in anger; things just… “stopped”.
I think about Julia every so often and wonder what she’s doing with her life. I hope she’s happy, wherever she is.
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Is it a sign of the times that I met all my closest friends through the Internet? Surprisingly, I never ran into your problem of not knowing what to say in person. If anything, I use the chats online to vet prospective friends I’d like to get closer to.
Actually, I’m the same; though when I meet people for the first time, Julia’s always at the back of my mind. I haven’t had a bad experience since, touch wood, and my online friends are definitely my closest friends and the people I trust the most.
I’m fine thanks.
Glad to hear it. (Wrong initials, sadly. Unless you got married or changed your name. :))
Funny how it goes isnt it?!
My first proper boyfriend was someone I met at a riding camp, we called and talked on the phone but were unbearably embarrassed when we met up – it was almost exactly the same situation as you described actually. I still feel embarrassed now when I think about it…
I met Steve playing Halo and I distinctly remember the first time I met him, Birmingham New Street Station at 10.05 (I caught the train, I dont have time OCD) and he was late… Everything worked out ok in the end, despite me being so nervous, but it could so easily have ended up being a big disaster; I think we were both incredibly lucky!
I guess that as you get older you get more confident about reading people even via messages / blogs / tweets etc. I have definitely met some great friends over t’interweb, several of which I met via the One A Day Project !
TL:DR – I feel your pain, life is weird.
Yeah. I agree. I know I was hugely nervous about meeting my gaming/podcasting buddies at PAX East last year… and again the year before when we went to Toronto for a Grand Conjunction. I came from the UK and my buddy Chris came from Santa Rosa in California, and we hung out, played board games and video games and made merry. ‘Twas all good in the end. And PAX East was literally one of the happiest times of my whole life. Shame it came just before everything went to shit.
I’m more confident about getting a read on people now. I used to feel oddly nervous about referencing things we’d spoken about online; almost as if they hadn’t really happened. But I’m sort of over that now. If I hung out with @NintendoTheory and @acronkyoung I’m pretty sure we’d be (almost) as gay with each other in RL as we are on Twitter. 🙂
As for girls… lovely girls… well, I guess that remains to be seen. I met my wife online, and I met someone I dated briefly towards the end of last year online, too. It kind of stands to reason that whoever I “end up with” (assuming there is someone, of course) will be someone I got to know online first. 🙂
You bet all be all up and gay in here when we meet. Or I might just give you a bro-hug and play some games. Guess we’ll see! 😀
My friend and I used to play “The Uncomfortable Game” all the time. We’d see how far we could take the act before the other person become uncomfortable and then lost. One time I unzipped his fly before he cracked.
We could do that.
Hahahaha. Awesome. We should TOTALLY do that.
Although I’m half-worried that one of us will end up with someone’s dick in their mouth before we crack.
Still, you never know until you try, right?
GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME.
Huh. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but you’re probably the last longterm friend that I “met” in RL first. Sounds funny saying it like that, but I have so many great friends all over the world now – not something I’d change for anything.
Nope, I wouldn’t change it either. There are even some people in Southampton (Sarah, Emily) that I met online first.
Good old Internet.