Friday, November 03, 2006

Friend Seeking Friend

When I was in the eighth grade, we got The Internet. I'm totally dating myself here guys, now you all know I am a baby. I'm sure not many of you had The Internet in the eighth grade. It was so exciting! I could pretend to be sixteen! Every thirteen year old really wants to be sixteen, because they are so MATURE! And respected! I spent the first 3 years of my Internet life as a 16 year old. Luckily, no one seemed to notice. But really, that is neither here nor there. In the midst of pretending to be my brand new mature, respected, sixteen year old self...my friends and I began chatting it up with real live people we didn't know. BOY people. I should mention here I had a 3D boyfriend, but he was only thirteen. When you are Internet-sixteen, real live-thirteen is quite a drag. So Friday nights, my best friend came over and we pretended to be super cool sixteen year olds who flirt with boys online. We had a blast. Of course, Saturday we still rode bikes around the neighorhood, but Friday nights? We were adults.

We heard about a website for our local radio station, called...(wait for it)...CyberLove. It was set up like a mail station, you set up a mailbox with a profile, and people could search and exchange messages. Because I had a boyfriend (stupid thirteen year old boyfriend), I was honest (ha!) and put my box in the "Friend seeking Friend" section. I think I put that I was fifteen, because this was local, and what if I met someone? Lying that you are three years older is TOO much, but lying about two years could just be a mathematical error, I guess. I think my SN was a character from a Christopher Pike novel, I didn't even know how to pronounce it, I just liked the character.

I found a boy, who was also "fifteen", and I emailed him. I have no idea what I said, but he replied. His name was spacemanZERO. He lived in a neaby suburb. He loved the Smashing Pumpkins and computer games. He was nice. We exchanged a few messages before we divulved we both had significant (I use the word loosely) others. His girlfriend was long distance, he was introduced through a mutual friend and they had met only one time. My boyfriend, well, he used to burp and blow it in my face at the lunch table. We continued to exchange emails, because we were "Friends Seeking Friends" (there isn't anything wrong with that!) and we both knew about the other's other.

Then SHE broke up with him! "OMG, Josh, how COULD she?!? I'm so sorry.(not!)" And inexplicably, the burping in my face became too much to handle...and I dumped Burpy. We were FREE...we could have, say, moved our profiles to the "Seeking Hetero Relationship" section, if we wanted. Instead, we started calling each other on the phone. We talked every day. After a few weeks of the phone business, we decided to meet.



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TO BE CONTINUED!

*evil laughter*


His avatar.

9 comments:

muse said...

"in the eighth grade, we got The Internet"

I just choked on my coffee... LOL

Then I checked your profile, thinking OMG, how young is she??

Then I thought "egads, I am soooo old!" (Internet = university for me... in college I remember teachers forbidding us to use the computer to print our assignments because -way back then- paper had those little holes on the sides where you ripped it, and they thought it was "messy")

I'm 33, btw... going on 34... going on to old age soon! lol

Can't wait to read the rest of your story! :)

Anonymous said...

I'm even older - Internet = grad school for me.

We did get our first computer when I was in grade eight, though - a Commodore 64. (cut it out with the evil laughter over there!)

This is such a fabulous story - I can't wait to hear more...

jo(e) said...

Hell, I'm old enough to be your mother.

Can't wait for the rest of the story.

Beck said...

So very, very old.
And my first computer was a Vic 20. Ah, memories.
That's a wonderful story! I'm so interested to hear what happens!

muse said...

bubandpie: I had a Vic-20 which I sold to get a Commodore 64, later on! LOL

Ahhhh, finally, someone who "gets" me... ;)

Anonymous said...

I had a commordore 64. I think I even wrote an essay on it once.

I had a computer while I was University but didn't get on the internet until graduate school in the US.

BTW, I'm 36.

Anonymous said...

hehe, i totally did the "I'm sixteen and super cool" thing when I was 12 or 13 on the internet... (we were early starters and had internet when I was in second grade, but just text based... when in sixth or seventh grade we got *pictures* and *web pages* it was The Best Thing Ever); glad to see that one of the blogs i read is written by someone not too much older than me : ) (i'm 21...)

Andrea said...

Dude. I'm 31.
I remember in 8th grade "computer class" we got to program the computer to do something... I think it was DOS... so even though I didn't cuss back then I had to program it to say "ass" all over the screen, or something like that, and of course I got busted.
Computer chatting and all that started for me at the end of college.
I had a wonderfully torrid little affiar w/ my soon-to-be hubby when he moved away and all we had was the computer. Good times...

Andrea said...

That is a wonderful story about how you met! Love it.