Alone on AOL

My first Internet boyfriend used the AOL chat handle al0ne, with a zero in the middle, which maybe should have been my first clue to stay away, but then again I felt alone too. My handle was cherubrock01, in tribute to Smashing Pumpkins. He was 14/M/Berkeley and I was 14/F/Sacramento. Likes: Garfield and the color blue. Dislikes: popular kids. A quasi-misanthropic match made in heaven.

I was an unhappy high school freshman,  finding a new kind of solace on my family’s dialup-enabled computer (when my mom, dad, or brother wasn't using it). I hung out in the chatrooms and, for a time, produced an e-zine that was distributed via AOL email, temporarily landing my family's account on a spam list. The zine was the first online home for my angsty poetry and a form of diary that would eventually be called a blog. If nobody in my Earthly sphere cared to hear my thoughts and feelings, at least a few oddballs on the Web might.

My in-person social life and confidence level were in dire shape. I’d parted ways not long ago with my junior-high best friend, telling her that we weren't compatible anymore. In truth, she was small and cute and popular while I was gangly, brainy, and awkward. I couldn't handle the jealousy and the idea that she would probably dump me for cooler friends anyway.

At school, I spent my lunch period eating in the girls' bathroom. Not only did I have no friends, but I was trying to hide from a guy who had a crush on me. His name was Duane. Once, out of politeness, I'd let him walk me home, but I thought he was weird in his ever-present denim vest with Led Zeppelin iron-on patches. Weird fashion was a minor fault, secondary to his mistake of trying to poke through my defensive shyness. I was far too insecure to really connect with someone, and too immature to reject him outright, so I hid.

Online interactions were easier. Safer. I could define myself on screen exactly how I wanted, and talk to boys without being exposed to their perfectly human quirks that I didn’t know how to handle because my only romantic experience was dreaming about the love of handsome men in R&B vocal groups. The anonymity spared them from my prejudgment as it spared me from being prejudged based on my mouthful of braces or my Honor Student status.

***

I wish I had transcripts of those first private chats with "al0ne," whose real name was Paul. Did we really bond over an affection for Garfield? Whatever was the key, we started chatting every night on AOL and eventually moved our conversations to the phone. My parents allowed me to make limited long-distance calls, and let me use the phone in their bedroom for privacy. I’d like to think they spent some time eavesdropping on our calls, or had first spoken to Paul's parents to make sure he was actually a 14-year-old boy. I don’t remember, but I'm certain they weren't listening when Paul told me that he loved me over the phone.

Sitting on the edge of my parents' bed, I froze. This was supposedly everything I’d wanted since I started puberty and cried deeply felt tears over love songs. Here was a cool and smart guy, I thought, who lived just two hours away and seemed really into me. But this early declaration didn't feel right; we had never met or seen each other. Still, I said "I love you" back to make our relationship official. He said he couldn't be my boyfriend if I didn't say it.

We decided to make it more official by having an in-person date. His parents helped him buy a train ticket from Berkeley to Sacramento, and my parents took me to pick him up at the station. They also chaperoned our date, keeping a respectful distance while looking out for my physical safety. This was unprecedented for them–not only the Internet dating part but the fact of me going on any sort of date. They didn't know how to coach me through the strangeness of this scenario, and didn’t know that this boy claimed to be in love with me. They probably weren't too worried about a couple of nerdy kids meeting up and having McDonald's together.

That's about the extent of what Paul and I did: had burgers and fries, then went for a walk in the park. I'm pretty sure he tried to hold my hand, and if I let him, the dead-fish quality of my appendage probably signaled that I wasn't into it. I was overwhelmed by the idea of love hanging over us and its attendant expectations for how we should be acting together as boyfriend/girlfriend. I was ill-prepared for all of this. The closer he tried to get, and the longer the day went on, the more I withdrew into my standard armor that kept boys away.

Before Paul boarded his train home, he said that he'd been hoping to kiss me that day, but now thought it probably wasn't a good idea. "Yeah, probably not," I mumbled back.

We stopped chatting on AOL. About a week after our singular date, I got a letter from Paul in which he expressed disappointment in me. "How do you ever expect to get a boyfriend if you don't act cool, or funny, or something?" he wrote, giving voice to the worst things I thought about myself. I had recently written a depressive poem about being trapped in a hole where "society" had put me and "covered me up." As Paul shoveled more dirt into that hole, it confirmed what I knew: that I wasn't cool or deserving of love.

***

Later in freshman year, I got to know a couple of girls who also ate lunch apart from the bigger crowds and didn't fit into any of the stereotyped groups that I was wary of. One day as I sat down with my lunch on the library steps (Led Zeppelin Duane had backed off by then), I saw the girls walking toward me. They had sought me out. "You're fun!" they said, and sat down to eat with me. None of them had boyfriends either.