Remembering Chat Rooms, Pensively

I WAS FORTY FIVE years old in the year 2000 when my mother bought me my first computer, an HP with an 8 gig hard drive and something like 32 megs of RAM. (does that sound right?) She paid five hundred dollars for it. What a way to treat a 45 year old kid! Like everybody else at the time, I signed up with AOL, and became addicted. It happened almost immediately. I discovered AOL chat rooms, which tended to be online hook up joints, and instant messaging, which was the vehicle to cement hookups. the chat rooms were organized by topic: sports rooms, knitting rooms, rooms for thirty somethings, etc. But no matter what the supposed room topic, folks always seemed to be on the make, for sex. Meet 'em in a chat room, corner 'em in an instant message. In those days people were driving and flying all over the country. I tended to prefer that they come to me, but wasn't adamant about it. I tried not to travel outside my own state. One must have limits, you know. I understand how Facebook and other social media became popular, but I still don't understand why chat rooms became unpopular. They were flat out fun. Too much acrimony? Isn't acrimony what we all love? Maybe not. Chat rooms and instant messaging went so well together, I would think that there would be plenty of room for all our social media, and chat rooms as well. Guess not. Actually< I heard that chat room still exist, somewhere. Does AOL still exist? Nowadays, in or era of fake news, one hardly knows what exists, and what doesn't. In a chat room, you can either participate, or just sit there and read what other people have to say, as the words enter from the bottom, and scroll up to the top, then vanish. I remember spending happy time sitting at my computer, a good book in hand, and occasionally glancing up at the chat room. Multitasking! chat room were about as addictive as Facebook, which, I am told, is very. I finally joined Facebook, but it just isn't the same, somehow>. why do people prefer it? Maybe because they can express their narcissism (see my pretty house!) without having to deal with a bunch of inane comments from strangers. Well. at least we still have venues for inane comments from strangers.