Why I Love The Internet

The luckiest thing that ever happened to me, happened on the Internet four years ago today.

When my older son was in college in Montana, it was cheaper to leave the Yahoo IM on all the time than talk on the phone. The downside was that strangers would pop up and randomly talk to me. It wasn't too bad if they took *no* for an answer when I was busy. But some were unreasonably persistent. There had just been a run of men from Egypt who just wouldn't take a hint and had to be blocked. I was loosing my patience with the whole thing when a new one popped up.

"Are you really in Boston?" This didn't surprise me because lot's of people on Yahoo have online names that have nothing to do with their real life. On occasion I have talked to people with Boston in their name and not only are they not from Boston, they've never been to Boston. So this question, I answered. That wasn't enough, more questions.

"Which part?" Well, at the time, this was one I hesitated to answer. I don't know why, but I felt that revealing Charlestown was too much info. So I dodged this one. Then there were a series of questions about Boston. I answered them with increasing belligerence. I told the person I was busy.

"Come on, talk to me. I'm bored!" I told him again I was busy and besides, I didn't talk to strangers. OK, stop laughing, that was basically true back then. I had dumped a really crappy boyfriend a few months earlier and I was totally concentrating on working 60 hours per week and being good on Atkins. No social life, in real life or online. He tried again.

"Come on, I am bored and lonely out here in the Middle East!" Full stop. Now I was peeved. I told him that I didn't talk to strangers and I didn't talk to foreigners. The answer came back in all caps.

"I AM A UNITED STATES NAVAL OFFICER SERVING MY COUNTRY IN THE NAG. IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO TALK TO ME." I almost fell over laughing. He won. Hands down. How could he know? We hadn't discussed anything except Boston and the Red Sox and a couple of restaurants. No politics, no history. He was just homesick and looking to talk to someone from Boston in the middle of the night (it was his morning, but the middle of the night here). How could he know that I fold like a house of cards with that line?

So we talked. A lot. Eventually we came to find out that we had mutual friends. That we used to hang in the same bar in Revere. We laughed about all the times we probably came within feet of each other but never quite met.

I am grateful every day. That was the day someone flipped that switch and turned my life from black & white to technicolor. Everything was different.

That's why I love the Internet. Especially the little chime noise that Yahoo makes when someone sends you an instant message.

So yesterday was my last chance to talk to SB for the next week or so.

"I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, and you know how unusual that it is for me." He laughed at me. "Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the day you bullied me into talking to you."

He laughed again and said "That's your story and you're sticking with it, huh?" Then it was my turn to laugh. We both know how lucky we are and we try to tell each other as often as possible.