Looking back, it’s hard to remember what life was like before the Internet. I remember I first became exposed to the murky world of the web around 1996. It was a lot different then: there was no MP3 files, no P2P file sharing, no rich media, not a lot really, just a load of text. My first experiences of net life were quite exciting and I got involved with the relatively niche “chat” community that was being run on MSN. It was cool to talk to people around the world, but it was here that I learnt that nothing is ever what it seems. It was also my first of two net regrets.
While chatting, you make a circle of virtual friends and certain people become “closer” to you than others. At one point, I was spending a lot of time chatting to one woman. At the time it was all a thrill and I was flattered that someone on the other side of the world could find me interesting enough to want to talk to me. However, things progressed in a direction I had not envisioned and before I knew it, this person had found out where I was working in London and was sending me packages of love letters and photographs, etc.
As you can imagine this is very embarrassing when you open a Fedex package expecting it to be work related and something unexpected drops out onto your desk. I quickly realised that the web had lead my up a dark alley and I need to back-pedal ASAP. OK – I wasn’t exactly innoncent in all of this as there had been a level of reciprocated virtual flirting, but I didn’t expect the full stalker treatment. It was revealed that this woman had spent in excess of $60 to track me down and more money sending the stuff to me. Long phones calls came into my office, again at my embarrassment and this woman threatened suicide if I stopped talking to her. With those words and that threat, I told her I could no longer speak to her, because it is not good to be put at the end of an ultimatum like that. My gamble paid off and this woman didn’t kill herself. I heard that she found someone else to hook up with. And to think she wanted to leave her husband and child to be with a dopey old, limey, eh?
Well that got your attention, didn’t it? That is my standard warning about the Internet. Sometimes it is very hard to have any perspective because unlike real conversations where you can read body language, facial expressions and timbre of voice, you have no such cues on the Internet. Whereas you might think something is a big joke, the person at the other side of the world is weeping into a hankie believing all is real. Like that story I just told. I just made that up to illustrate a point. Or did I? With the Internet, you never really know…
On the other hand, the Internet has enabled me to do a lot. I’ve managed to torture the world with my excrusiatingly dull music and learn an awful lot of useless facts. Without the Net, would my life be any less richer? Who knows? It’s hard to say, it’s become so pervasive. For me, the Internet has partly replaced the radio or Teletext as an information source. But it is so much more than that.
If you get your fingers burnt, you tend to withdraw somewhat and that’s what I did. There are a lot of strange people out there who use the Internet has some kind of support network. This is great if you can manage it. Personally, it has never worked for me as I have only ever found one other person out there willing to give me any support, but that’s beside the point. I am working towards my other big regret…

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