My AOL Past

Today I decided to install AOL on my iBook only for the simple reason that it was free. I remember a period in my life where I was always logged into AOL IMing friend and lurking in chat rooms. For ol' times sake I decided to take a look at the profiles of the people who were in my buddy list.

The first buddy was an ex-boyfriend, who I coincidentally met on AOL nearly 10 years ago under a different screenname. The funny thing is that profile has barely changed in the time that I have known him. The only thing that has changed is his location but he is still trolling the M4M room looking for hookups. He works from home and has access to his bed at all times so I guess it is just an occupational hazard.

When I first began talking to my next buddy, who also an ex, his profile was pretty benign. His profile now is pretty much the same but there has been an addition that shocked me. The addition of his sexual proclivities is only shocking me because he's very libel but he has this conservative side. I am still scandalized; I am going to have to talk to him about this.

To this day, I am still now sure why I spent hours each day logged onto AOL. Maybe I liked the idea of chatting with strangers under total anonymity. It allowed me to cultivate an persona which was an idealized version of myself without all of the neuroses. I think grad school cured my AOL addiction. Or, quite possibly, it was AOL releasing crappy "upgrades" to their software that cured my addiction.

Either way, I don't miss it all.