AOL Saga

I was on AOL from 2000 to 2005, and I spent a lot of time sitting in front of my computer, in the AOL chatrooms, sometimes typing in comments to the room chat, sometimes just reading what others said, and taking mental notes. It became my primary hobby. Addiction was threatening. 

The idea of spending time in chatrooms and writing a book about it occured to me early, within a few weeks of my joining. There were just too many iteresting people, talking about to many interesting things, to ingore the possibility. The AOL social scene seemed like a perfect reflection of American culture.

I repeatedly told people I was in the chatroom to observe, and to eventually write a book. Everybody seemed to accept that. Sometimes I thought they were flattered. I fully intended to be a dispassionate, objective observer, an intellectual entity, a journalist.  Fat chance of that.

There were just  too many interesting people....

I collected a list of female friends, somehow. I think it was an  AOL feature called a "buddy list".
On my buddy list were all females, surprisingly.

So when I found out thet Michelle, my "friend" in New Jersey, was in fact alive, and not  murdered, I rapidly dispelled my shock and grief, passed rapidly through the anger and resentment stage, timidly rejoiced, and moved on. Everyone on the internet eventually figures out that the internet is a great place to communicate, and to be extremely dishonest.

The issue of travel always comes up. I believe it still does, though not as much on the apparently  dying AOL. You meet somone online you grow to like very much, but who lives hundreds or thousands of miles away. Do either one of you travel to meet? The answer in numerous cases turned out to be a resounding "YES", as in the late 1990s and first decade of the new milleniunm Americans were bouncing back and forth across the country having long distance internet generated relationships by the millions....