Chatting

Alternate Title: Yes, I know that I’m a nerd! Stop reminding me!

You know what I miss? A good, fun internet chat room. I’m sure there are some out there, but all of the ones I used to go to are either no longer in existence, or just aren’t fun anymore.

Unlike most internet chat geeks, I never really got into IRC; I just couldn’t be bothered. So the first chat room I got involved in was Chathouse, which was actually HTML-based; you’d type in your message, and click Submit, and it would load the next screen of stuff people had said. You wouldn’t see others’ messages unless you refreshed. Sounds strange, eh? But it was a great place, with a lot of really fun people. But it’s dead now; all of the fun people I used to chat with don’t go there anymore, and the last time I checked, it was literally empty.

After Chathouse, I wasn’t really into chatting as much, until years later, when Andrea and I broke up for a while. I started looking around for ways to fill my time, and tried going back to Chathouse—only to find out how little of the fun remained. And then I discovered the MSN chat rooms, and specifically the Kisses room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking when you read the name. And I can’t say that I blame you. But the room was really fun. I made a lot of friends in there (many of whom I no longer talk to, because I’m not good at keeping up with people like that...), and really felt free to just talk and have a good time.

And then MSN started charging for the chat rooms. Which was fine, sort of, because by that time Andrea and I were back together, and engaged, so I didn’t have as much time for chatting anyway.

But... every once in a while, I get a couple of hours of free time, and I get to reminiscing about the fun chatting can be. And when I do, there’s nowhere to go. Any time I do see a chat room advertised, it’s usually in connection with some type of dating service, which I’m not really interested in. I tried another chat room, but the people there just aren’t fun, like the ones I used to chat with.

As with most of my posts, there isn’t a point to this one. (So no, I don’t need anyone to send suggestions for chat rooms I can try.) This post is just serna killing some time, since he has nowhere to chat anymore...