Love, laughter and tears (Your online social life)

Member Name: MorganaDQ

Product:	Your online social life
Date:	27/03/02 (93 review reads)
Rating:

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It's 11:20am and I've been up for a little over an hour. I sorted through my snail mail - looked for ebay cheques, threw out the junk mail I couldn't return in their prepaid envelopes, ignored the bills - and sat down with my first cup of coffee for the day.

I'm still feeling bleary-eyed from a bad night's sleep and a cold I can feel starting, but at least I'm awake, right?

I glance at my little clock in the right hand corner of the screen, wondering how far away 1pm is. It's true what people say about time going slower when you're waiting for something. But this is an unusual day for me. Normally I'd be doing housework by now, and wishing Claritin worked better than it does. I'd be hanging out washing or dusting through the house. Maybe a wander out to the local corner shop for the latest special offers. But instead, I'm sat here writing this opinion for you lovely people. See how nice I am?

I'll feel guilty though. I already do. I have rules, you see. I'm not allowed to chat to any friends online until I've done some work. Ah, but rules are meant to be broken sometimes, even I know that.

Once I've done some housework, I'll sit down here and I'll go through my usual routine of looking for freebies, doing competitions, checking email, seeing if I have any new bids on ebay items, and so on. But that's only a small part of my online time. Like so many other people, I imagine, the majority of my time online is spent chatting with people. For the most part, chatting with people I've never even met.

I've not been online for long, only about two years, but it's become a much more important part of my life than I ever thought possible.

Two years ago hubby and I acquired a computer from a company who was selling off old machines from their offices, and what was the first thing we did? We found a way to get online. It wasn
't long before a friend asked if we'd ever been to a chat room. He didn't even own a computer himself, but a friend of his would use them, and he'd been his partner in crime on more than one occasion.

So, URL written on envelope (come on, you all know you do it!), we found one particular chat site, chose our name, and went in together. Why together? Well, even when you're not meeting people face to face it can be intimidating.

We surfed from one room to another, staying quiet but watching with growing interest. So many people knew each other and talked as old friends would, that it even began to feel, to a degree, like we were encroaching on their territory. Neither of us had known what to expect, and it's probably just as well. Knowing what I know now, I may never have returned. But I'm jumping ahead of myself here.

We hardly talked to anyone that night, but we found when we logged off that it had almost exhilarated us, and we knew it was just a matter of time before we returned.

Well, we did return, but not together. Gradually, we both found a room we were most comfortable in, and we started to meet more and more people. The more time passed, the closer we both got to people. People who lived in Australia, America, Canada, and countless other countries. People we'd never actually met. People we rarely even had a photo of. It was amazing. It was as though a whole new world had opened up to us, and it had changed our lives.

If it hadn't been for the restriction we placed on ourselves thanks to the charges our ISP made at the time, I know that back then, we could have both vegetated in front of the computer all day or night. It was like that first cigarette, almost. Once you'd had one, you just wanted another, then another, then another. It took me a long time to finally admit, even just to myself, that I was addicted to chat rooms.

It sounds ridiculous to
some of you, I'm sure. But it's true. I would hear of people spending more than 24 hours at a time chatting in just one room, and I couldn't understand why or even how they did it. But it sneaks up on you and bites you hard on the bum one day. And you realise you're addicted.

It reached the stage that I not only chatted in the rooms, but I had them as contacts on ICQ, AIM, MSN and Paltalk, too. I no longer needed to go into the chat room to speak with them; I could do it through these wonderful little instant messaging programs. I had nearly 40 contacts on ICQ alone. On more than one occasion I found I was talking in the chat room, and had another five or six conversations going on at the same time on these various messaging programs, plus one or two in private rooms in the chat room. I look back on it now and I shudder. I shudder because not only was I devoting so much time and energy to these countless people who, when I look back (for the most part) weren't even friends, but I was ignoring my husband because of it. My life had changed so much that our marriage was beginning to suffer. But I wasn't alone in my addiction. They say it takes two to tango, and it does, and although he wasn't nearly so bad as I was at that time, it was bad enough that when we did talk, it was about all our other 'friends'. It could so very easily have been the end of us, but it wasn't, thankfully.

You may wonder why I'm going into this when really, under the heading and description, there's no need to. Well, I can't help but think if it can happen to us, it can happen to others. My best friend's marriage split partly due to her husband's infatuation with a woman online. Maybe if he'd had someone to tell him what could happen, it wouldn't have. Who's to say?

But this opinion isn't just being written as a scare story. There's still more to come.

So, we&#
39;d found the chat rooms together, and we ended up drifting apart because of them. I won't go into details of what happened to make us both wake up, needless to say something did.

For the most part, those countless people in the chat room have no contact with me anymore. I came to realise that they were acquaintances, and nothing more. I uninstalled ICQ and Paltalk. I only use MSN regularly now, and my contacts were cut from over 30, to just 6*. I only talk to one person on there every day, the rest are either real time friends who I'd rather talk to on the phone, or I'll see the others maybe once every few weeks. I use Yahoo now, too, but my list has only 3 people on it.

I still go to two chat rooms, but not for longer than a couple of hours, and only at night. One is a place I can stay away from for weeks or months, and be welcomed by familiar names and made to feel as though I never left. A place where a community is formed through their common interest, and respect is rife. A place where everyone usually knows your name, and if they don't, they usually stick around to find out. I suppose you could say it's my second home, and despite my unfortunate experience with the original room I visited, it's a room I wouldn't want to be without. It's the chat room in the Opinionated Community. The other chat room I visit has the same respect, the same community spirit, and the same welcoming mat at the door, and one I'm relatively new to. But you can tell a good egg, you know? When you've been there, done that.

So, to the original questions. How much of my time do I spend communicating with others on the Internet? A few hours a day. Depending on my mood and my health, it can be more hours than you'd dare consider. But it's different now. I've learned to keep my feet on the ground and appreciate what I have here, in my own home. I busy myself with projects to keep my mind act
ive, giving myself new challenges and learning every day. So long as I can keep my head from drifting off into the clouds, and give my husband, friends, and family the time and attention they deserve, it doesn't matter whether I'm online for five minutes or five hours.

Have I made many friends on the Internet? A few, I'd say, but not many. Thanks to the OpCom, I've made some friends, yes. The degree of friendship differs from one to the next, as with 'real life'**. I have a handful of friends from the very first chat room I frequented, but only two whom I consider close. One of those is my best friend, next to my 'real life' best friend, and my husband, of course. He's the one I speak to every day. He's the one who I know will (usually) be online from 1pm. He's the one I look forward to chatting with every day because he's so genuine, respectful, intelligent, and honest. He also happens to be the one, next to my husband, who's done the most to help me through my self-esteem issues and respect myself. The kind of person anyone would be proud to call a friend.

Have I ever met any of these Internet friends, and were they any different in real life to their online personas? Yes, I've met some. The first one I met was a guy who lives just an hour's drive from me. He was someone I met in the first chat room, and we'd talked a fair bit. We got on well, for the most part, though we did have our differences on occasion. Was he any different from his online persona? Well, a little yes. What I found most intriguing about that one particular meeting was that his humour and actions online weren't really so different to the way he was when we met. The difference was the setting. Sometimes, you can take a person out of one place and drop them in another, and suddenly they turn from a charming, witty friend, to a lecherous old man (even if they're not old). Not everyone is
who he/she seems, that much is true. And although I recognise that fact, I also recognise that the majority are who they appear to be.

I've also been to OpCom meets. I was at two last year, and my experiences at them both couldn't have been more different to the one mentioned above. For the most part, everyone was exactly the same as they came across online. One was maybe more shy than I'd expected, one was maybe shorter than I'd thought. I'll leave you to figure out who I'm talking about, if you can be bothered. But, saying that, they were still the same people I'd been talking to for months. They're the kind of people youd not think twice about meeting again, and I have much respect for them.

Have I met the guy I chat to every day? No, I haven't. But that has everything to do with not enough money on both parts, and responsibilities. It's not nearly so simple to fly to Texas, as it is to drive to Nottingham or Huddersfield. But I have no doubt whatsoever that the person I've grown to love and respect over all this time chatting is just the same in person as he is over the 'net.

I can almost see the raised eyebrows over the mere mention of the 'L' word when referring to someone I've never met. Some of you will understand, I know. Some of you won't. But when you make a connection with someone, you make a connection. It doesn't matter that you've never shared a pot of coffee over a lunch break. What matters is the cerebral connection of two people, whoever they may be.

See, it doesn't matter that there may be thousands of miles between two people. It doesn't matter if you've met or not. It doesn't even matter if you don't know what the other looks like. What does matter, though, is that you stay true to yourself and your family. So long as you put them first and deal with your own life, your own goals and dreams, and you
r own aspirations before you devote any time at all with people online, you'll be fine.

Common sense should always come into play, here, though. If you'll permit me, I'd like to get all maternal on you and say a few words of warning:

·Make people earn your trust - it takes much longer when you can't look them in the eye.

·Don't give out personal information, such as your telephone number or postal address - people aren't always what they seem***.

·Be honest with yourself and your partner - secrets and lies will always damage a relationship.

·So will addiction. Recognise that chatting can be an addiction, and learn to see that staying up late into the night just to chat with one person, when you have a partner laid in bed asleep, means you could be addicted and need to step back.

·Remember that no relationship is ever saved by being online, and that the only way to save it sometimes, is to switch the computer off and turn your back on it.

·Make sure you put your family first. They are who's most important.

So long as you remember all that (and, no doubt, more that I've forgotten to say), you should enjoy yourself as I have when you chat with people. The 'net does account for much of my social life. Had I the ways and means to have a more active social life for 'real', I'd do it.

Remember, too, that this isn't just a bit of fun for everyone. To some it's their lifeline. People's problems have been talked through and solved online, some people may have even been talked out of suicide through the 'net.

There are two things I always consider when I meet someone new, as well as when I'm talking to someone I already know. Respect and consideration costs nothing, and it can make all the difference to the person sat behind their computer, pouring out their heart to you. Listen, if that's all you can
do. But always remember respect and consideration.

Online friends have made me laugh, and hopefully I've made them laugh, too. They've helped me through problems and I've helped them through theirs. I've cried because of online friends, and I've cried *with* them. I've shared my dreams and aspirations, and listened to others'. And I'd want it no other way.

To pinch someone else's words...

"Take care of yourselves, and each other."



* Some of you may realise you were on my MSN contact list and haven't seen me for a while. Now you know why. Apologies to those who feel it necessary, and raspberries blown to those who couldn't care less ;)

** I hate the term 'real life' when referring to the differences between the two. It suggests that what you experience online isn't real. It is. Emotions and feelings aren't any less viable just because you're talking with someone through a computer.

*** It's true that people aren't always what they seem, but it's also true that many are. I believe it was TheDuke who supplied statistics in his opinion on this subject, so I won't go hunting them out or repeating them. Needless to say, using common sense when talking with someone you haven't met and can't see is of the utmost importance. I've given out both my phone number and my postal address to people online, but only two. And they were two people I trust implicitly after spending close to two years getting to know them. Just be careful, OK? :)


Copyright, K Wakeman, 2002.

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