room with a view

it was the summer of ’94 and i had just bought my first modem. all a-flutter, i drove home from the store with the shiny, shrink-wrapped box on the passenger seat. i couldn’t wait to install it into my screaming-fast 486sx33. i didn’t know what it would bring into my life, but i had the feeling it would be something big. something important. but at that moment i was just suffused with the pre-geek glee of new stuff for my computer.
once it was installed and the phone line was plugged in, i started by dabbling in bbses where i filled my 200mb hard drive with useless downloads (and where i found a photograph of the concept design for the new beetle. in ’94!). i was even lured over to the dark side of compuserve for the duration of a free 30-day trial. i was content to search for games to fill my time and occasionally message the sysop concerning modem settings. it wasn’t until a conversation with my boss’s wife when she recommended i get an internet account with a fledgling isp in nanaimo, because she thought i’d find it interesting, that i knew there was more out there to discover.
after debating it for a few weeks, i finally gave in. i drove to the office and actually sat down with the owner of the isp to set up my account. herb ran it out of the basement of an old house on the edge of the business district. i remember driving home after picking my userid and password… once again, i could almost feel something on the horizon.
the ‘net was a completely different creature in 1994. text-based. white-on-black. unix-ruled. slip. shell accounts. usenet. gopher. archie. trn. pine. tin. finger. plans. ytalk. mosaic. you didn’t instant message, you emailed or logged onto irc or a talker. if you wanted to see what someone looked like, they mailed you a photograph of themselves – no one had a picture of themselves scanned. i met my first net.crush through an ad in soc.penpals.
i was overwhelmed but still curious, eager to see what was around the next virtual corner. that’s when i found talkers and delved into online communication in a real-time conversation. i was instantly hooked. the story of my time on telnet chat programs (aka talkers) is far too long and convoluted to even begin to describe here. i’ve experienced just about every high and every low one can possibly experience via the medium. it makes me weary just thinking about it. that doesn’t mean i’d trade a second of it for anything, though.
the internet used to be my sole means of communication with the outside world. i hated living in a little one-horse town. i hated being fat and shy and unable to make friends of strangers. the ‘net gave me a window through which to form relationships with actual human beings who were not co-workers or family members. people of types i’d never have the opportunity to talk with through any other means. i would spend almost every spare moment online, searching for a connection with someone, anyone. that desperation led me into situations which have scarred me beyond reconstruction; but, they’ve also taught me lessons and opened me up to experiences i couldn’t ever have encountered in the day-to-day life i was living.
that’s changed. i don’t make those kinds bonds as easily over the fibre. i’m more jaded, more cynical; less trusting, less naive. that’s not to say i don’t still meet amazing people with whom there is an almost instant connection. god knows that’s not case. it’s just that now, i’m not logging on solely to find an answer to my loneliness, a voice from the ether to cling to. i have other interests and obsessions. i’m still a part of online communities and i’m sure i always will be, for as long as i have a dialup account.
now i have my own life, in the big blue box. all this, which used to be all i had, is now a supplement to everything else which goes on in my life. for the first time in a long, long while i’m happy to be me when i’m away from this whirring contraption of blinking lights. it feels good.