Finding Romance on the World Wide Web

It’s finally happening—I am becoming computer literate. Thank goodness, I am not yet a computer geek. I don’t wear a pocket protector on my shirt pocket, and I don’t know all of the computer jargon. I mean, I still think that "megabytes" is just another name for those chicken nuggets at one of the fast food restaurants! However, slowly but surely, I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the Nineties!

My experience with the Internet certainly began innocently enough with e-mail. We had an e-mail address set up at the office, and it seemed to me to be a very practical tool. Now we had the ability to send mail without having to use paper or pen, without having to lick a stamp and without having to go to the post office! I immediately realized how much more effectively we could do our work at the office using e-mail. What I didn’t realize was that, once our e-mail address got out, we would get mail from all sorts of people! I get messages from family members, from my eleven-year-old niece telling me the latest news about the teen musical group "Hanson" to my Aunt Mabel who catalogues the medical ailments of the older members of the Pruitt family. I’ve even gotten animated e-mail messages from well wishers and friends, one of which featured a line of rats doing the conga (it was a conga-rat-ulations message—thanks, Becky!)

Having conquered the use of e-mail, I was ready for the next big step. I ventured into the on-line CHAT ROOMS for the first time. For those of you who don’t know what a chat room is, it is a web site where people from all the world can get together and "talk" by sending written messages that appear sequentially on screen. It can be a bit confusing, because several conversations may be going on at the same time. It’s like an old-fashioned telephone "party line", only now it’s high tech! There are thousands of chat rooms on-line, and most of them have a theme. Usually it’s an area of common interest, like "trivia" or "music" or "literature". Sometimes it’s geographical, so that you can talk to people from your own part of the world … or from someone on the other side of it. Some of the most popular chat rooms are the "Romance" chat rooms, which are like a "cyber singles bar", the place to meet the man or the woman of your dreams. The "Romance" chat rooms are further divided into smaller sites, such as "Gay Men’s Lounge", "Married and Flirting", or "Pick-Up Bar".

At first, my interest in the chat rooms was strictly professional. I had attended a local HIV/AIDS Community Summit, and we had discussed the possibility of spreading HIV prevention messages in the gay and lesbian chat rooms. So I entered the chat rooms for the first time, and started joining in the conversation. It shouldn’t be surprising that, if you are in a chat room called "Pick-Up Bar", the conversation would be full of sexual innuendo. It’s amazing what information people will disclose about themselves in the relative anonymity of cyberspace! Often in a chat room, you are not identified by your real name, but rather by a "user name" that you select for yourself. In the "Romance" chat rooms, the user names tend to be very descriptive. I’ve talked with users with such names as "OneHotManForYou", "Open4Business" and "Rubberducky". One night, in the middle of all the "sex talk" in a crowded chat room, I brought up the concept of safer sex. The room fell silent, but only for a moment. My HIV prevention message was not warmly received. I was informed that "cybersex" was the safest sex around! In fact, the only sexually transmitted disease in a sex chat room is carpel tunnel syndrome! Repetitive key strokes, I wonder?

Over the winter months I visited the chat rooms many times. Fortunately the chat rooms are a good way to meet people in a non-threatening way, in the comfort of your own home. Unfortunately, I don’t have Internet access with the computer in my own home, so I was using my friend Ken’s computer … and Ken’s user name. One night I struck up a conversation with a schoolteacher in Florida (whom I’ll call Floyd). We had a lot in common, and really enjoyed "chatting" with each other about work, relationships, Life, etc. We shared a lot with each other, and a real friendship began to grow. One small problem, though: Floyd thought that I was a hockey fan named Ken! So the next time that I logged on the computer, I created a new user name that used my real name. I started chatting with Floyd, explaining that I was Ken’s friend. The conversation was awkward and didn’t last very long. Two days later, I logged on again under Ken’s name and talked with Floyd again. Floyd admitted that he had talked to "Glen", but didn’t really like him very much! Talk about confusing! He was telling me that he didn’t like talking to me when I was me, and he did like talking to me when I was someone else! I finally confessed to Floyd that it had been me the whole time, though there really was a "Ken" and there really was a "Glen" and that we really are two different people, though Floyd had really only talked to one of us … oh, just forget it! Not surprisingly, Floyd and I don’t keep in touch anymore. However, I have met some wonderful people in the chat rooms, from all over the world. Some of them have now even become readers of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, checking out each new issue on CAMP’s web site (www.camprehoboth.com). So here’s a "cyber salute" to on my on-line friends, especially Tim and Louis!

Many people in the "Romance" chat rooms are trying to use the Internet to find That Special Someone. I know at least one couple right here in Rehoboth Beach that found each other that way. I can’t mention their names here. They’re not in the closet, though you could say that they’re in the pantry! And I have to admit … it’s happened to me, too. A few weeks ago I found "the object of my affection". I’ve been searching for twenty years and now finally we have found our way to each other. A part of my life is complete in a way that it has never been before. And we were brought together by a web page: eBay.com (an on-line auction page). I now possess a vintage, mint condition, 11-½ inch Debby Boone doll, produced by Mattel in 1978. Talk about fulfilling the American Dream! Now I really DO have a little woman at home!