Modem geeks: people or fools?
She said she thought I was "nice" and she'd like to meet me. She seemed like a decent enough person.
A week later I spent hours on the phone with her convincing her not to kill herself. A few days after that, some "friends" of hers called me to intimidate and harass me. One of them asked if I'd like to join one of their cults and another told me he'd kill her if I talked to her again.
Now you're probably asking yourself, "Wow. Where can I meet someone like that to spice up my less-than-exhilarating life?"
Well, for the answer to this mystery, you need look no further than your modem. Skilfully used, the modem is able to uncover a virtual gold mine of freaks and psychos from across the city or -- brace yourselves for this -- all over the world.
The way I came across the aforementioned freako (we'll call her Tamara, since that's her name) was through a computer bulletin board (also known as a BBS, which stands for Bulletin Board Service or System or Something).
The way many BBSs work is something like this: some kid with a spare computer and phone line (and an abundance of free time) sets up a BBS system at his house. This allows anyone else to call him at that spare computer during all hours of the day to download or upload files, write and receive messages, hack the board, send viruses and other such joyous activities (BBSs were similar to the Internet only more localized. They were more popular before the Internet really caught on -- most BBSs in my area have since closed down).
BBSing is something a fairly large number of weirdos do. Before the advent of BBSing, weirdos were a rather isolated lot, confined to associate only with local weirdos and those they met at regional weirdo meetings at irregular intervals. But now, weirdos can write to others of their kind from all over the place. And not just writing either: talking, meeting, threatening, dating, seducing, blackmailing, bribing, kidnapping...oh, the options are unlimited.
Initially, I called BBSs for two reasons. First was to debate issues with people, including abortion, gun control, capital punishment, spoon/fork and other such controversial topics.
Second was to write in "flame areas" where people basically insult each other and you can have a great time pissing people off. Often, debating -- especially debates with narrow-minded bigots -- degenerates into flaming when the other person sends a reply with some clever quip like "Yeah, well you must be a faggot (or other primitive slur of choice) then too." Ah, that cutting-edge ingenuity.
I've been threatened a lot in flame areas -- one wingnut told me in graphic detail how he was going to hunt me down, run me over with his lawnmower, come to my funeral and kick in my tombstone. Another bozo told me he'd burn down my house then kill my family and chop up my dog, but was dismayed to discover I had no dog. (I also suggested if he burned my house down when my family was there, he could kill two birds with one stone, but the logic seems to have escaped him.)
One of the "flamers", a girl named Lynn, was this racist skinhead chick with about seven words in her active vocabulary, five of which were four letters each. After I insulted her for months, she one day threatened to kill herself. While I did not like her in the least, I felt somewhat responsible for her troubles (especially after telling her she could be a poster child for abortion.).
Anyways, I offered to meet with her to sort out her problems. When I met her though, she was not at all as I expected. For all her outspoken white power raving and ranting, she is one of the most timid people I've ever met -- she wouldn't even make eye contact with me and seemed rather intimidated for the few hours I talked to her. She was wearing a Sid Vicious T-shirt and had blue fingernail polish and way too much makeup.
So I drove her to a coffee shop and we started talking. She decided not to commit suicide because she said she was too busy (this logic has a certain flaw in it, but I wasn't about to argue). I tried talking to her about the racism -- she says her father was a die-hard racist and she lived in a predominantly white area and her few contacts with non-white people had been negative ones. I hope I got through to her but I'm not counting on it.
But that wasn't the first person I met. One day, about a month before I met Lynn, I received a message from a girl named Audra, who seemed impressed with my flaming and debating. She considered me one of the more intelligent people writing on that particular BBS (which I suppose isn't saying much but it's the thought that counts).
After writing to Audra for a few weeks or so, she gave me her phone number. That just freaked me right out. Sure, I was totally cool with writing messages to people but actually talking to them? But against my better judgement, I gave her my number.
One night we talked on the phone for about four hours and we met the next day. It's kind of like meeting a pen pal or something, except even weirder -- I mean, I'd only written to her for a few weeks and talked with her on the phone a couple of times. For all I knew, she could have been a terrorist (though statistically, the odds were against such a thing). When I met Audra I found she was outgoing, friendly and attractive, much like the way I thought she'd be.
Some people laugh at the idea of meeting someone through modeming or e-mail but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. In real life when you meet someone, your first impression of that person is the way they look, and you may make certain judgements on them based on their looks before you know what kind of person they are.
But by BBSing, you can get to know more about the person before having a clue what they look like. For all those who say that beauty is only skin-deep and really believe it, give BBSing a shot. There's always a slim chance the person at the other end is lying or playing mind games with you, but of all the people I know who have met people this way, few have had major complaints or disappointments.
I've also read about people dating and even marrying over e-mail and BBSs. I dated a shy girl named Pam last summer, for about a month.
It was a little awkward talking on the phone with her since she was deaf and she needed her sister to be on the line as a mediator to tell her what I was saying. It was strange since although she had written me messages months before we met telling me she was deaf, it never really hit me until the first time I talked to her on the phone.
This may sound sad, but Pam was the first girl I ever dated. I got a bit of teasing about her and some people I knew thought they could just label her a "modem chick". But like any other person, she has a life in the real world also. I went out with her to movies, visited her, went for walks with her -- the same kinds of things non-modeming people might do in a relationship.
I met some friends of hers -- one of whom I still talk to -- met her two sisters and her parents, read part of a book she'd written and during the time we went out, of course, we still wrote to each other on BBSs. (this wasn't always easy to do though since her dad would often ground her from the modem for spending too much time on it. I don't think he liked me very much.)
The biggest misconception people have about those who use BBSs and other kinds of computer-related communication is they are people without social lives. Well, some people do let computers dominate their lives. These people will occasionally meet at "GeekFests", where a number of modeming people gather to discuss police scanners, computer, CB radios and other "fascinating" things.
I have good reasons to stay away from GeekFests. First, while I'm cool with writing to many people on a BBS, there's a select few I have any interest in meeting in real life.
My personal well-being is another reason. I've pissed off a lot of people in flame bases and more than a few people would love to beat me into a bleeding pulp.
Basically, if you're ever writing to someone on a BBS or even on e-mail or whatever and either of you consider meeting, keep in mind a few simple suggestions: don't try to imagine what they look like until you meet them, keep in mind they may be much more shy in person than in writing and there's always a chance they're a liar/psychopath/assorted other freako. Sure some of them are the epitome of the geek stereotype, but many of them aren't.
So if the opportunity comes up, why not give it a shot? You might make a friend, maybe a good friend. Or you might meet someone once and be so disappointed they lied to you that you never speak or write to them again. But either way, it's like the saying goes: don't knock it till you try it.
(by the way, in response to the title of this article "Modem geeks: people or fools"...well, some are people. Others are fools. Some are both. I hope this has helped)
