First Three Visits To Chat Rooms Enough For Lifetime

I’m not afraid of heights. I’m not afraid of the dark. And although they’re not my favorite creatures, I’m not afraid of snakes. I have recently, however, developed a deep-seated fear of “chat rooms.”

I frequently use the Internet as a source of information. It never occurred to me to use it as a source of new friendships.

I like to monitor my daughter’s chat rooms and was doing so the other night when she said, “Mom, how many times are you going to check on me? You see what we talk about. Why don’t you get your own chat room?”

She aroused my curiosity. The next day I was searching the Web for neurotic dogs and what to do about them when an ad appeared on my screen for ivillage.com, A Place For Women.

Well, let’s check this out, I thought. I’m a woman.

After registering and coming up with an imaginative user name (dayley), I clicked on the chat room icon and was given a plethora of rooms from which to choose: All Health, Food, Work From Home, Relationships, Parenting, and Moneyline, to name a few. Work From Home looked interesting.

Work From Home chat room

I clicked, and three boxes appeared: one listing the user names of the people currently in the chat room, another in which dialog scrolls up the screen, and third at the bottom of the screen where you type your thoughts.

There was only one person in the room, so I jumped in with both fingers. My dialog box appeared as follows: dayley: Hello lilacchick, Do you work from home?

lilacchick: No, do you?

dayley: I’d like to, but find I don’t have a lot of time. I do volunteer work at my daughter’s school, drive kids to and from sports games, edit a local newsletter and take care of my mom.

lilacchick: Are you whining?

dayley: I guess I am a bit.

lilacchick: What are you, some kind of martyr? I don’t have time for this!

The message, “lilacchick has left the room,” scrolled across my screen. I was at a women’s Web site. I thought we were allowed to whine.

Food chat room

Not to be discouraged, I moved to the Food room. There were five other people in this room all having a conversation about which I had not a clue. People would write in comments that had nothing to do with the previous comment. I finally realized if you watched your screen long enough there would be a reply to something you had read but had already scrolled off the screen.

Once again, I decided to jump in.

dayley: Hi everyone. I see we’re in the Food room. I was raised on red meat and potatoes and find it awfully difficult to cook any other way. Does anyone have any ideas on how to change years of this kind of eating habit? I just can’t get satisfied on any of these healthy lifestyle eating plans….

I continued along this line for a good three paragraphs before submitting it. That ought to give them food for thought, I laughed to myself.

kitty5: Hey! Quit clogging up the screen.

jayjay: Write your novels on your own time if you don’t mind.

foodjunky: Yeah, I know how you can change your eating habits. Eat ….

Dayley has left the room.

Relationships chat room

OK, one more. I was not going to give up on this. I entered the Relationships room.

Hi everyone! I wrote. This was a safe opening. I had observed most people did something similar when they entered a room.

loulou46: Hi, day.

roycebro: hi, day

racymama: Hello day

Wow, they answered me. I now followed the script intently.

ilovecm: thaz what I mean, LOL

ivylyn: Yeah, me too.

loulou46: r u sure thaz what he said

dayley: I’m new to chat rooms. What are we talking about today?

ivylyn: BRB lou. save the good stuff til I get back

I called to my daughter to come in for a minute.

What do all these initials mean - LOL, BRB? What are they talking about?

Teenagers have a remarkable way of showing utter disgust with the slightest of looks, roll of the eyes, or posture of mouth.

“Mom, think about it: LOL - laughing out loud; BRB - be right back; r u - are you. There’s also, GJ - good job; WTG - way to go; NEI - anyone. Geez, and you went to college?”

Even her back as she left the room spoke volumes of disbelief.

I resumed my watch of the conversation. Pressure was starting to build. I said “hi” to all these people, and now I’m just sitting here. They know I’m still in the room; they can see my name in the corner.

dayley: Teenagers, huh. Who can figure them out? LOL.

No response to me.

dayley: So, loulou46, who are we talking about?

No response.

I followed the conversation a little longer.

loulou46: Married men are never a good idea, love

roycebro: dump him, love

ivylyn: what did I miss? yeah, sorry love better let him go

ilovecm: I know u r rite. its hard

I was now ready to get into this conversation. I actually knew what they were talking about and had a little experience in the matter.

By the time I’d get my relevant message typed in my box, however, the relevance was long gone. I couldn’t get the knack of abbreviating. I capitalized and punctuated and missed all my golden moments taking too long to respond.

To alleviate this problem, I decided to write with all caps.

dayley: I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ILOVECM. IT WILL PASS. I KNOW.

ivylyn: you shud try hanging out with girlfriends for awhile

racymama: heez a jerk

dayley: HANG OUT WITH GIRL FRIENDS IS A GOOD IDEA. LEAVE THE JERK

All of a sudden my screen goes blank, then a box appears in the middle with the message “You have been kicked out of the Relationships chat room.” Under that is a line that says, Comments: Quit yelling! How rude!

That’s it! I’m through. I can see that I will not become another victim of the chat room addiction everyone complains to Ann Landers about.

I’ll stick to e-mail, thank you very much. Then at least I’ll know to whom I am talking. That reminds me:

Send to: mom@juno.com

Subject: e-mail

Dear Mom, Why haven’t you answered my e-mails? I’ve been writing to you for three weeks!