how long have you been online? i was introduced to internet when i was in secondary 4, which is about 8 years ago. yup, quite a veteran. at that point of time, me and my friends were introduced to IRC, and for the first time in our lives, the ability to chat with people across continents in the comfort of our own homes, at minimal cost.
in the beginning (and for a very long time), this ability is such a novelty. how would you ever thought about the possibility of interacting with people that is separated from you between such long distances, with such different environment and culture? and i can tell you, wow, the feeling is damn great. it feels like you own the world, and then everybody else who doesn't have internet are just puny earthlings, hehe.
and through this IRC (at that time IMs weren't that popular yet) world, me and my group of friends spent countless hours after school, chatting up people, and most definitely, girls. i started a channel (online chat room) that became popular (and still popular today, but not owned by me anymore) amongst malaccans, and it became like a match-making channel. why a match-making channel? well, let's just say people say it's like a match-making channel because of the number of online romances generated from the channel.
i remember one of the first couples that met in the channel, and got together. she was from penang, and he, from KL. this was long time ago, maybe in '96, but again since they were one of the first to get together in my channel, the memory is still quite fresh in my mind. we have lost touch since then, and i have no news from them, but from what i heard the last time i met them in KL, they were going to get married in a years' time (counted from the time we met). but i digress.
a lot of people have mentioned how unreliable and unreal online relationships are. to me, i hold a neutral opinion. oh, and online relationships are not confined to "chatroom romance" only. it also applies to online romance that were initiated through MUD (multi-user dungeon) games, a kind of online RPG game. however, as i was reading up boingboing.net today, i come across a strong and valid argument that online relationships can actually work.
Quoting the article, "It's also seldom we see our real life friends and lovers react to sudden crises, but that's what happens all the time in MMORPGs. In real life, you need to wait till something bad happens to know if your friends stick around. In MMORPGs, you make friends with the people who have demonstrated their integrity to you."
