Cyberpals: A scratch on the surface

by Gerlyn “Jing” Santos

In these days of advance technology, a click of the mouse on my computer instantly transports me from the real world into a pseudo world, a cyber meeting place that enables me to interact with people whose ideas may be the same as mine or diametrically opposed to mine. What makes this bond unique is that everybody wears a mask or hides behind a cloak of invisibility. All of us are shrouded by a façade of hilarious/unique/deceptive aliases and equally weird/illusory/comical avatars to protect our anonymity.

My escapade began one wintry day while I was busy surfing the net. Nobody introduced me to the site and I did not even know that it existed. It was just one of those inadvertent discoveries. Honestly, I am not a net geek or freak and a computer to me is just my means of staying connected to the Philippines through the newspapers that I read daily. Chat rooms and web sites are not my fancy.

However, after that fortuitous discovery and by just being in the site for barely a day, I became hooked to it. It became my instant “upper”/ alarm clock. I woke up every morning with zest, and with much eagerness, switch the computer on just to log in my codename and password. I eagerly anticipated for answers to the queries I posted the night before or to the continuation of the games that we played. My enthusiasm paid off. Due to my frequent postings I was able to upgrade my status from a newbie (first level) to a forum resident (sixth level) in a breeze. It was not easy to attain such status since certain numbers of posts are required for each level and normally it takes three-months worth of frequent postings just to reach that rung in hierarchy ladder. But with my perennial presence in the site I was able to curtail the time and got hold of forum status in less than four weeks. Such fast acceleration is just one of the many fringe benefits of having 24/7 days a week online net connection at home. I can log in anytime plus I did not have to worry about rising bills because the rate is fixed. I did not have to contend with other users and wait for my turn unlike in a net cafeteria, though I haggled and negotiated through three oppositions: my hubby’s web making hobby, my son’s maze games and my daughter’s power puff girls exploits.

Since I was a rookie to that forum site and my first ever exposure to the virtual interaction, I was easily wrapped in the tangle and magic of the web. Spellbound was a more apt term. I experienced the so-called cloud 9 “high”, a lightheadedness feeling, a sort of euphoria each time my status climbed a notch higher in the hierarchy ladder. I felt as if I accomplished something of significant value. Time melted away so easily while I was engrossed in the net. As if time was but a handful of sand slipping away from my fingertips. I jumped from one forum to another and read the posts of fellow members as well as added my penny’s worth of opinion. I shed a tear or two to some of the articles that the members wrote. I gave a shrieking laughter to some of their comments. They made me laugh with their wholesome but sometimes out-of-this-world answers. They sometimes moved me to think and to take stock of what I believed—be it philosophical or spiritual. Though I knew for sure that not everybody is telling a grain of truth to whatever they wrote but nevertheless they triggered me to reflect. I also had a chance to vent my frustrations as well as my aspirations by just typing the words and clicking the reply button.

Funny it may sound but I could feel a sort of connectedness by just talking to these unknown people. It seemed that I knew them personally. I conjured an image to a faceless friend. I created a personality based on the pieces of information that he/she gave. It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle of each individual. I could hypothetically assess based from their answers if they were snob, friendly, wacky, spoiled intellectual, airhead, ad infinitum.

The chat room was my constant companion during the lull hours that I was alone in the house. The words and zany exchanges of banter made me feel alive in this neighbor-less (neighbor-less in the sense that I didn’t know my neighbors’ names, thus I felt isolated) place. I get to mingle with people who are 10 years younger than me since most of them are still university students. Talk about reliving lost youth. Nonetheless, I also had a chance to talk to those who were either in the corporate or academic sector.

Just like any preoccupation, merits as well as demerits run parallel alongside each other. Firstly, prior to discovering this site, I used to finish at least three medium-sized thick novels in a week but this was sidelined and was totally put at the lowest rung of my priorities. I forgot to read the books because my attention was enmeshed in the cyber world. Secondly, I crammed my household duties because I got lost with time. I sometimes sat there for four hours .The only time that I stood up was when I couldn’t feel my butt because it was already numb from sitting for too long, my fingers were already stiff for typing answers and my eyes were becoming red for staring on the screen for a long time that I couldn’t read anymore the words on the computer. On a few occasions, I burned the food I was cooking because I was unmindful of what I was doing. I was in front of the PC instead of the stove. If not for my keen sense of smell I could have burned not only the food on the pan but could have caused a much greater damage. Thirdly, I did not want to be disturbed by my kids and be pestered by their incessant queries. Hence, I answered their questions with a curt yes, no or I-don’t- know just so I can evade explaining the topic.

The day of my detoxification from this site’s addiction began one beautiful spring day when our PC broke down. That gave me a forced lapse in accessing my favorite site. I was not able to log in the whole day. Time was excruciatingly slow as if I was dragging the time. (read: three hours in the forum seemed like a wink but three hours with household chores seemed like a nightmare. hardy har har. sheepish grin). I became productive again. I was able to do the household chores that were shelved for quite some time and I resumed reading my overdue book.

My ravenous craving to post was slowly weaned the day after our PC got busted. The following day I saw that my rank sank one level. Then it dawned on me that I should use my time in a more fruitful and innovative way. Why should I sweat and slave myself in typing my answers—thus suffer from back pain due to prolonged sitting, suffer from stiff neck because of unidirectional view for a long time and strain my eyes till the letters in my screen becomes hazy—just to upgrade my status? Then what? My hard-earned posts were brought to naught as in nada, zilch, zero. My posts, together with other posters, were deleted because it already reached the maximum page number of a certain thread. However, I would be a charlatan if I do not divulge that I extremely enjoyed those times.
I am not completely off the hook. I did not sever my ties. I do still visit the site and trade discussions with my cyber pals though this time on a much lesser frequency. I still make my presence known to those individuals whose wavelength is the same as mine. Consequently, it was inevitable that I developed an affinity to some of them. Oftentimes, I send private messages to a chosen few and sometimes I dish out bits of advice to those who shared their problems. I haven’t seen these individuals. I don’t know the real them. I only knew them on the surface level. Yet, they seem to be a part of me.

Note: The author has four more rungs to climb to reach the highest status but decided to plateau on the forum status level.

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