ASL?

 

I got my first computer when I was 13. Like everyone else at the time, we had dial up internet. I had AOL. It took about a minute and a half to get online and have everything fully loaded. I used to get so pissed off whenever an incoming call would screw up my connection and kick me offline.

[Get’s kicked offline]

Me – MOM! Tell Gia (grandma) you’ll call her back in an hour!

Thank goodness for high-speed internet. My cousin from Orlando came to visit one day and introduced me to the AOL chat rooms and I quickly became addicted. I never did it with the intentions of meeting anyone. I would just chat at times when I was stuck at home with nothing to do...which was often.

I used to lie through my teeth in chat rooms. I was a 13 year old kid with red hair...not interesting. Instead I told everyone I was a 17 year old breakdancing DJ that lived with his older brother. Interesting! I also had my own car in this fantasy. I was cool and pathetic at the same time.

My AOL screen name was MYSTIKAL2000GANJA. What.THE.Fuck. How did I come up with that name? Why? The younger version of me scares the ba-Jesus out of me. It’s sad that I thought that that was cool. Cool how?? I don't know!. I never even tried ganja at that point of my life. Why was it in my name?

Why Mystikal? For those that don’t know/remember, he's this guy:

He disappeared from stardom due to his incarceration for raping an old lady. Class act. Why did I choose Mystikal? Fuck if I know. He has never been my favorite rapper so that is out the question. Once again with the reoccurring theme on my blog: I am retarded.

I chatted with so many weirdoes in the online world. I had a who’s who of pathological liars on my buddy list. I didn’t know who were real and fake. I remember befriending this one girl in particular, Aleksandra. She lived in Utah. I met her when I was 13 (17 online) and she was 12 (15 online). She sent me fake pics, I sent her fake pics and we both ate up each other lies. Fast forward to a boring night in 2005 and I decided to see if she still had the same screen name on AOL (it’s a catchy name, hard to forget) and she did! I sent her a message and this is pretty much how it went: 

Me – Hey Aleks, it’s me Alex (oh yeah, I told her my name was Alex)

Aleks – Alex?

Me – Yeah, the DJ from Miami with the big yellow bus (...don’t ask)

Aleks – WTF ALEX?!?!

Then I went on to confess my lies. Then we exchanged MySpace links and it turns out that she isn’t such a bad looking chick, she’s very cute. I remember not talking to her for a bit because I was in a relationship and didn’t log into MySpace much. Then she deleted me. I think it was one of those deals when a person puts up a bulletin stating: “I’M DELETING PEOPLE. IF YOU DON’T SEND ME A MESSAGE, I WILL DELETE YOU.” I read the message one night and didn’t think she’d delete me if I didn’t send her a message but she ended up deleting me. It would have been cool to meet her in person. Reminisce about the hilarity of our online life, catch up on the present, and make out for a few hours. I’m sure she’d be down for two out of 3.