Net Chats

A girlfriend of mine has just had the closest thing to being reborn. She joined the international chat community, she is an official Netizen.

It was interesting seeing her take her first few paces. A myriad of emotions seemed to overwhelm her. Excitement, surprise, uncertainty among others. Watching her was like a watching a flashback in time, when I first started chatting.

Phew. I've said it. I chat.

Certainly there shouldn't be any stigma associated with this. After all, it's supposed to be harmless anonymous communication with just about anyone with a computer. Web businesses have just about made a killing with this phenomenon, so what could possibly be wrong with it? Why did a part of me want to warn my friend about the perils of chatting?

The perils do not lie with the very concept of chatting. When you think about it, chatting is nothing more than a first introduction, with the chat software replacing a friend or family member as the middle man. Some liken it to meeting someone in a bar. Without the fear of immediate rejection.

Which brings me to a point. The fear of rejection is alive and well in cyberspace. It is this morbid and paralyzing fear of rejection that generates the first problem associated with chatting. Some people create profiles that are best kept to fantasy novels. Height, weight, waist size are either inaccurate or total fabrications. For unlike a bar setting where the visual impact cannot be hidden, the chat room buys you time. Perhaps the personality can overcome any initial concerns by the other party. So what could have been an immediate rejection could become a later acceptance based on a deeper connection. Yeah, right. A lie is a lie even in cyberspace.

The moralist in me wants to say if you can't be proud of who you are, and if other won't accept you for who you are, then stuff it.

But then again, there are other reasons why people go down the yellow brick road. Some have said that they get tired of using their real profiles and pictures only to have others hijack them for their own use. Fake profiles are so rampant that seriously no one knows who they are talking to anymore. And in an age where paedophiles and flesh eating men are scouring cyberspace, that is something to be truly concerned about.

Beyond the issue of identity though, you have to wonder what can come next from a chat. My girlfriend was mortified, being a net virgin that she is, to have had men offering to show her their willies on camera. Of course for the newbie that could be absolutely disgusting. But how long after the barrage of offers before curiosity sets in, you give in and you end up questioning your entire moral values. Is it wrong to see other willing and able adults bare all for cyberspace? Is it odd to be turned on by people you can't even touch?

Is it even odder that many chatters seem to have a dislike to take things to the next level? And hello, we aren't talking sex...yet. Text communication is one thing. Voice communication is another. And if you are in the same vicinity, face to face communication is the final goal. The 'bar' setting. Theoretically of course.

Many feel that taking the voice step is a huge one to take. And meeting in person, well, that is just too risky. I guess when people become used to communicating in cyberspace, real time becomes real hard.

Perhaps the fear of rejection is the prevalent issue still. It is so easy to hide behind text, a profile (real or fake) and not have to deal with the hassle of a real meeting. I have personally chatted with people who seem so wonderful online, but who refuse to talk on the phone or even meet. They seem more comfortable carrying on 'anonymous' chatting, which becomes ridiculous since chats eventually betray some part of yourself to the other person. How does anyone conduct anonymous chats when after a while it's no longer chats between strangers?

Of course there are the exceptions. There are people who are actually open to the possibility of making that great friend, or even lover. I too have heard the Hollywood fairy tale of people meeting their life partners through the internet. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have secret desire to have a "You've Got Mail" scenario happen to us. We've all wanted to speak of a lot of 'nothings' that add up to a 'something'. Net relationships, like any real time connection takes time to develop, even longer I would argue. Trust is something that has left the room in cyberspace and it takes a leap of faith to say you really know the person you met online. But if real time meetings fail, then do we really have to blame it on the net? Could it be that real time dynamics and chemistry just did not work, as it could have been in say a 'bar' setting?

Still, imagine meeting that person. Imagine having a great time. Imagine being intimate. Invariably the question lingers, is this person putting on an act? Is this person for real? So even if real time dynamics work, what would I say to my friends and family about where I met this person? "Hi Mom, Dad, this is David, he is a US Navy man and I met him on the net...He's wonderful!!!". Yeah right. You don't know what's worse in terms of image: the fact he is a navy man or you met him on the net.

The stigma of a net chat.

Should I warn my girlfriend about the perils of chatting? Should I spare her the sleepless nights of chatting only to get a handful of truly meaningful relationships over a span of years?

I don't know. But I will say this. When you think about the old way of communicating, through the written word on paper, through letters, you realize how far we have come. But the sentimentalist in all of us will remember the joy of receiving a letter from a pen pal, cherishing every word that was written and every postage stamp that got it to its destination. Perhaps technology has made communication so disposable it becomes too easy to say things you don't necessarily mean or feel. And it has made language a bastardized construct as opposed to the art form it was before.

It's funny. While technology and communication is supposed to bring people closer together, it seems to be taking them apart. It becomes a pity that a fantastic medium of instant connection is not exploited for its true value. I admit I have chatted with a lot of people over say 4 years. But I can count with my fingers how many I have kept in touch with and forged meaningful relationships with. Perhaps though, those few people out of the thousands, and the hope of meeting yet another one of those great real people, make the next click on the mouse worth it.