A Brief Ramble Regarding my Internet History

I had the sudden urge tonight to remind all of my Facebook friends that...this...as in, this timeline, is me, stone cold sober. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that my trip through social media in a broader sense didn't begin until I was about 3 years sober. I think a lot of my Facebook friends are often on there in various stages of intoxication and it's charming. But I am glad to be posting sober, let me tell you. 

I was involved with strange, early forms of social interaction on the internet, from about 1994 to 2004, prior to getting sober, including very early Usenet bulletin boards, email lists, online forums, AIM, ICQ, and then the weird AOL feature of "chat rooms," one of which, called "Orgy," I was a regular member of for about 8 years (it had exactly zero to do with sex, although guys would sometimes wander in looking to "cyber," and promptly get trolled and flamed). "Orgy" was a hilarious room full of sarcastic, well read, funny people and most of the time we made stupid jokes, talked about books, and made fun of political figures. 

It used to be possible to see who was on AOL near where one lived, and I picked up several women this way, and that was a weird manifestation of "singles" bars online, although most of the women I met that way were married. There was the phrase, "internet single," and that was good enough for many. I think this culture has maybe receded somewhat, although I'm not sure. I haven't met anyone that way in about 18 years or so. I think it's good that Facebook does not just provide a list of people in one's neighborhood or area or whatever who are logged on. 

On AOL, you could find women on the list of "people near you," *go to where they were on AOL*, and start chatting them up. I've always been good at internet small talk, even though I am really pretty bad at it in person. And then, wow, what a coincidence, I'm from Santa Fe too! And these "connections" often led to "dates," which were really just hookups. I had one-off (no pun intended) sexual encounters with four women I met that way within a short period of time, and had friendships with two others where the sexual chemistry wasn't happening, but we remained friends for years. I've since lost touch with all of those women. In weird existential greyness, I don't recall their names. In my sex and relationship inventories in recovery work, I have had to use letters as place holders. Other people I met at first in the online universe, I am still friends with to this day, and we have even met in person, in some cases. 

I never did get much into MySpace since it really rose up from about 2005 on, when I was struggling in early sobriety and actually trying to reduce my online time. For a brief but obsessive time, from about 1998 to 2000, I was addicted to Diablo (the first one) and had many "friends" on Battlenet, where my oldest brother and I would play Diablo long into the wee hours of the morning, which was much worse for him, since he lived in New Jersey. We were both members of a clan, The Snakegod Clan. My most developed character was a level 40 mage named Dark Magus, in honor of the Miles Davis record.

Dark Magus had the highest level spells it was possible to have in the first Diablo and was dangerous enough that he often inadvertently killed team members. This gives you some idea of how completely obsessed I was with the first Diablo. My brother in NJ, me in NM, and two other players from Hawaii would descend into Hell/Hell in teams of four players and run the entire most difficult level in under an hour, handily dispensing with Snow Witches and Balrogs or whatever and Diablo himself, and do this maybe 5 or 6 times a night, in search of extremely rare, extremely powerful magical items. Such utter geek nonsense. While doing so, we would chat about our marriages, jobs, general life issues, health, and finances. Very odd. I wonder where those Snakegod clan members are now. But this is just another example of how I have had entirely virtual, digital, sometimes close friendships with a great many people over the years, and I have never met them "in real life." 

I also was (very unwisely) playing online poker, with real money, drunk, for several years before I got sober. That was a bad thing to be doing. I did meet the author of Zen and the Art of Poker, and he and I were internet friends for many years, but have since lost touch. But online poker for real money was of course full of hackers and cheaters, and I kept getting outdrawn and outgunned in extremely unlikely ways because they were teaming up on tables and back-channeling their hole cards, etc., and it was a time wasting and money wasting proposition. 

It's odd to reflect on the fact that I have been intensely involved, wrapped up in all sorts of foolish virtual shenanigans, and very interested in the internet for 26 years now, and on Facebook for 13 years. It's weird to realize that Facebook is basically a fancy, gussied up, extremely more dastardly evil Big Brother version of some of these early forms of internet culture. MeWe is interesting because it feels a lot more 1990's in its interface, very old school and clunky and simple. But it is just dead as a doornail over there, because everyone obviously prefers being psychologically manipulated and fucked with on FB. It's more fun somehow, being rolled repeatedly by the goddamned algorithms. 

Anyway, when I think of the history of my involvement with the internet on a social level, and how important many of my virtual relationships have been, it is a powerful reminder of the weirdness of this arena. How real, heartfelt, and true, a great many of my connections have been, where there has been not even one real life meeting. I do not know if this is true for people in general, regarding their virtual relationships, but for me, for whatever reason, many have been just as powerful and present as my meatspace connections, and a few have been even more so. I wonder if anyone is doing research on this form and intensity of connection.