Jan 12 2009
The spidernet
At the end of 8th grade I moved to Orlando. I had a whole summer to go before starting highschool in which my only real friend lived six and a half hours away. Luckily I had already discovered the Internet. I had already been on it a few years. I was one of the ones who started as soon as it was available. Sometimes I miss the sound of a modem connecting, and I remember the AOL logo being a key that sent electricity into a door. I liked that.
The Internet was magic. As a song from the musical ‘Avenue Q’ explains, the Internet is for porn.
I was safe behind a computer screen. All my curiosities could be researched and explored without actually causing any damage or getting knocked up. There were endless sites with all the porn I could ever want. No more did I have to risk getting my dad in trouble by sneaking away with one of his Penthouse Forums.
Besides that, I was popular online. Online you rely on your personality to communicate, and I had that in bulk. I was always receiving IMs from all sorts. I made friends, I fended off perverts, I got to know people with similar interests. I discovered role-playing. It started off very innocently. A chat room where people would pretend to pass out refreshments to those hanging out. I liked the idea of it. I felt it was like writing a book of life as it happened. Then I learned there were whole groups and forums for that sort of thing where you could live whole lives as another person. Elves, Fairies, Vampires, Angels, anything you could think of. I was in heaven. Or rather, a Bayou.
Black Bayou was set in a fictional place in Louisiana and revolved around the paranormal. It was there I met another player named Zack. Our characters were often against each other, but ended up *very* close. We finally started chatting outside the role play since our characters had so much chemistry together. It turns out he was much older. He was kind and educational towards me. I had been afraid that he’d get weirded out when he found out my age, but he only acted surprised. He told me he assumed I was at the end of high-school, not the beginning. I was flattered and didn’t consider that he could have been lying. Luckily I wasn’t naive enough to give him my address or anything. Thankfully, he never asked. After a few years of online friendship I did finally give him my phone number. In all that time he’d never come across as creepy, asking for personal information of any kind, and I felt pretty safe. His voice was deep and smooth with a hint of growl. I believe I briefly developed a stutter. He told me my voice was like bubbles. He wanted a few sound waves of innocent things so he could hear me whenever he liked. Harmless phrases such as “nifty” and “wow.” He was polite as could be on the phone.
In our textual relationship he was much more evocative. He helped me better understand the elusive world of sex. Dominance and submission were lessons taught. I began to understand why some people could find pleasure in pain. How to use people to get what you want. He gave me the words to describe the acts I personally knew little about. Real descriptions, not the cheap thrills of a bad porno. He was better than the romance novels. I never failed to get off chatting with him. He may have been just a voice and some text, but he cemented my love for the darker side of things and I remember him fondly.
Unfortunately we lost touch not long after he entered a serious relationship with another person from the group. She was his age and lived near him, so I gave it my blessing and wished them well. I do wonder if he ever thinks of me.
I was lucky enough to never have a bad experience with someone I knew from online. What about all of you? These days many people have best friends that live all over the world. But back when it was still scary territory, did you ever give in? Meet someone you maybe shouldn’t have? Hook up? Date? File charges?
I never had any bad experiences with the internet either. I was always conditioned by mother to pretty much be afraid of everything, so I never really took many chances.
There were really only 4 main cases of internet friendship I can think of. The first was my friend Spike. I actually met him in person at a theatre conference one weekend. He lived pretty far away, so we just talked online all the time. He was my only sexual contact without having actual contact. We would type out and talk to each other about sexual fantasies and create scenarios of us being together. Typing is always easier than talking. You can completely be open and honest. It’s less personal and, therefore, easier to deal with. He had a webcam, so he would film himself showering for me… or jerking off while we were typing to each other. And as exciting as it all was, it made me feel a little awkward. Again, like I was doing something wrong. I could never do the phone sex thing. That just made me too uncomfortable.
I had an online friend that I met through a game my friend, Pat, was running. It was like an online reality game show. This guy Brett and I got along SO well! I wound up winning the game, with much of his help. We talked to each online a bunch after that, for about 5 years or something. He lived in Ohio, so we never met up. We never exchanged phone numbers. Nothing. He was just awesome, and we would look forward to talking to each other every day online. He was like my best friend. And we were each other’s interactive journals more or less.
A friend of mine from school introduced me to her friend Alex online. She had a huge crush on him and really wanted my “opinion” or whatever, I guess. Problem is, every guy she liked that she would introduce me too would fall for me! She never learned lol. Anyway, we talked online a bunch and realized that we got along GREAT! It was a bit uncanny. We did exchange phone numbers, and would be up till all hours of the night randomly talking, but it wasn’t creepy since my friend actually knew him. He lived in Massachussetts and he did come visit once. It was so much fun.
The last one was my friend Jonathan. He found me on Facebook actually. He used to go to the school I went to, found me attractive, and started chatting with me online a bit. I still never met him. Ever. We exchanged phone numbers once we were comfortable enough with each other, and, again, would be up for all hours of the night talking sometimes. He did get a little creepy. He was NEVER sexual with me though, which I appreciated and respected. But he was kind of stalkerish and creepy. He completely fell in love with me. He basically offered me the world, and I turned him down. Apparently, he talked to his parents and everyone he knew about me. I could hear people in the background when he was on the phone with me that supported this. He was really nice and romantic to talk to, and it felt good to be as admired as he admired me. He was living in Florida at the time. When he moved to Boston for work, he met someone there (thankfully lol), and got married. At first we would still talk once in a while, and it was nice. Then he just stopped. I can only assume that his wife made him stop talking to me since he was pretty much obsessed with me! I don’t think I would have liked my husband being that way either.
Anyway… I really don’t keep in touch with any of them anymore. Just Spike. And even that is pretty rare. Life got busy and I wasn’t online very much, so we all lost touch. I miss them all sometimes… but I am glad to be living my life with the people around me for me.