This past week I got a message from a friend of mine that I met in 1994 or so, in one of the chat rooms I use to chat it. This is where I am going to start with how I use the internet to connect with people.
When my family first got on the internet, the first thing I did was look for chat rooms. I had pen pals, the pen and paper kind, but the internet was a new way to talk to people. This is before instant messages were big, chat rooms were the place to go. It was actually a pen pal that told me about Wrestlingman's Chatbox, which was a chat room on a website dedicated to wrestling. The beginning of my being able to chat with people from all over the world (as the group progressed, through different chat sites and chat areas - such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat), we had some people from Austrailia and Korea chatting with us) over a common interest.
This common ground, wrestling, was just the foundation for friendships that have lasted over years. I don't talk to those people every night anymore, we kind of grew apart years ago, but with instant messengers (a topic for another post) and email, I've stayed in touch with a few of the friends I made.
Chat rooms are still popular, even though I haven't been in one in a very long time. Sites like MSN and AOL have them, and a quick google search could find a couple thousand more.
Any chat experience you'd like to talk about?
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