Think again...
I met Shakeel (27, Mumbai) who works at a traveling agency, he's in charge of international air ticketing. I asked him to search how much it would cost to go from Port-au-Prince (Haiti) to Mumbai (India), and it cost about US $5000 -I guess I'll just have to postpone that trip until I get lots of dollar$$-.
It's not like I was actually planning to go there anyway.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
What's wrong with Yahoo Messenger?
I have not downloaded the Beta of the new version of Yahoo Messenger but lately, my Y! messenger 6 has been acting really weirdly. First of all, I don't get any offline messages. Now, that's very unfortunate since I usually get many of those because I don't stay constantly online. It's frustrating! I keep thinking about all those messages that I just missed, people telling me what they've been up to and why I don't see them online anymore or others answering my offline messages, I guess I'll just have to settle for email the next time I want to have a differed conversation with a person.
In that same week, at some point I was unable to see the emoticones when I clicked on the emoticone icon in the messenger window, many times when I went into the chat I could not view any list of rooms whatever category I chose, I had to click repetitively on a contact's name on my list before I finally saw the IM window. Some of these problems might have something to do with the fact that my CPU and memory were overloaded with this resource-hungry application I was using this week but definitely not all of them -like the offline messages that I don't get-.
I was thinking that maybe in a near future Yahoo will start doing like microsoft and not allow everyone to go freely in chat rooms, though the rooms are plagued by bots and booters, the conversations can be enjoyable and useful -sometimes-. One more thing that's annoying is when Yahoo keeps you inside a room while you've either left the chat completely or had already joined another room or even signed out of the messenger. They keep you persistently in a room for I don't know how long. More then once I "was" in two different rooms at the same time and I was getting PMs from people in both rooms.
An Update
Shortly after writing this I went on the messenger and I found offline messages, a few from people who probably saw me in some room where Yahoo has kept me for the whole weekend -I've been offline since saturday- and others from friends hoping I was just being invisible and not really offline.
In that same week, at some point I was unable to see the emoticones when I clicked on the emoticone icon in the messenger window, many times when I went into the chat I could not view any list of rooms whatever category I chose, I had to click repetitively on a contact's name on my list before I finally saw the IM window. Some of these problems might have something to do with the fact that my CPU and memory were overloaded with this resource-hungry application I was using this week but definitely not all of them -like the offline messages that I don't get-.
I was thinking that maybe in a near future Yahoo will start doing like microsoft and not allow everyone to go freely in chat rooms, though the rooms are plagued by bots and booters, the conversations can be enjoyable and useful -sometimes-. One more thing that's annoying is when Yahoo keeps you inside a room while you've either left the chat completely or had already joined another room or even signed out of the messenger. They keep you persistently in a room for I don't know how long. More then once I "was" in two different rooms at the same time and I was getting PMs from people in both rooms.
An Update
Shortly after writing this I went on the messenger and I found offline messages, a few from people who probably saw me in some room where Yahoo has kept me for the whole weekend -I've been offline since saturday- and others from friends hoping I was just being invisible and not really offline.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
You want to see hairs?
I was asking Dozy for permission to put his picture on my blog, of course his answer was that I needed no permissions -awwh!- Still there was one detail that was keeping me from doing it right away, I needed a picture of Dozy by himself and I did not have one.
We talked again a few days after that and he had taken a few pictures with his webcam; yahoo did not let me download the first one but I did get the second one in which he was wearing his turban, had a huge smile and looked like a character from the Arabian Nights. Then he put another picture of himself in the messenger window, and I was surprised almost chocked by this unexpected sight... Not only wasn't he wearing his turban but also he was wearing his hair down and it looked all frizzy like he had just come out of the shower. As much as I enjoy describing Dozy's hairs I enjoy sharing his photo with you even more, regardless of your answer to the title of this post.
Dozy and his hairs
Now people are going to think that I am crazy about hair, but like I said to Dozy, it's only about his hairs ...hehehe...
Ah! When I think that I met Dozy in an Italian room while neither one of us speak Italian...
We talked again a few days after that and he had taken a few pictures with his webcam; yahoo did not let me download the first one but I did get the second one in which he was wearing his turban, had a huge smile and looked like a character from the Arabian Nights. Then he put another picture of himself in the messenger window, and I was surprised almost chocked by this unexpected sight... Not only wasn't he wearing his turban but also he was wearing his hair down and it looked all frizzy like he had just come out of the shower. As much as I enjoy describing Dozy's hairs I enjoy sharing his photo with you even more, regardless of your answer to the title of this post.
Dozy and his hairs
Now people are going to think that I am crazy about hair, but like I said to Dozy, it's only about his hairs ...hehehe...
Ah! When I think that I met Dozy in an Italian room while neither one of us speak Italian...
Monday, June 20, 2005
Saying I love you in color
Dharmvir came back after a few weeks of absence, we used to chat every day... It was almost a ritual, I would get an international call, and I would know it was Dharmvir telling me that he is online. Now he came back and he is still telling me that he loves me! -Maybe I should take this more seriously...-
Trying to post a picture on this blog I discovered how Hello can be funny. I entered the caption and clicked the button to send the picture and I see a heart falling like in the yahoo falling hearts IMVironment, so I tried many captions with the word "love" and I saw the heart each time. It's probably because Hello is a sort of chatting/photo-sharing software,probably...
Trying to post a picture on this blog I discovered how Hello can be funny. I entered the caption and clicked the button to send the picture and I see a heart falling like in the yahoo falling hearts IMVironment, so I tried many captions with the word "love" and I saw the heart each time. It's probably because Hello is a sort of chatting/photo-sharing software,probably...
Not seeing user chat rooms
I was unable to go into user chat rooms during the weekend.
Here's what Yahoo has to say about it: " The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable. We are working on improvements to this service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service. "
That's very unfortunate because I have met many people in my rooms and small user rooms are usually more enjoyable, there are fewer bots and fewer people who send u PMs.
I guess I'll just spend less time chatting with randomly-met total strangers living at the other end of the world...
The weirdest thing happened to me today, I was invited to a conference by someone I did not know, I accepted and then realized it was a bot that had invited me, telling me that her name is Erica and that according to yahoo personal, we are a match. It’s the first time I got a conference invitation from a bot, are bots evolving?
Here's what Yahoo has to say about it: " The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable. We are working on improvements to this service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service. "
That's very unfortunate because I have met many people in my rooms and small user rooms are usually more enjoyable, there are fewer bots and fewer people who send u PMs.
I guess I'll just spend less time chatting with randomly-met total strangers living at the other end of the world...
The weirdest thing happened to me today, I was invited to a conference by someone I did not know, I accepted and then realized it was a bot that had invited me, telling me that her name is Erica and that according to yahoo personal, we are a match. It’s the first time I got a conference invitation from a bot, are bots evolving?
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Indian girl and husband shopping
I've spoken with an 18 year old Indian girl. She is not the first Indian girl I have ever chatted with but she is the first one to add me to her contact list. She was having problems with her computer, she asked for my help, I gave her advice but she wanted to know whether I had anyone nearby I could ask to come to help her. I guess she felt I wasn't competent enough, she did not seem to even want to follow my advices. Indian guys usually take me more seriously than that!
I had a marriage proposal(?) from an Egyptian guy. We had never talked before but still, I told him it was not possible because I can't marry a muslim. He asked for my religion, I told him I'm christian then he let me know there was no problem because he can marry a christian woman. I told him I wanted my children to be christian, then he said no, the children had to be like their father. I refused so he told me "it's over", then he was gone. I suppose he was really searching for a spouse!!??
Hopefully, I'm not husband shopping on the net, otherwise I might had already gotten married to a 20 year old Indian sikh living in Uttar Pradesh who also wanted to marry me; that was one day after he had told me about this european girl he was going to marry someday, he even had her picture on his profile at the time!
I had a marriage proposal(?) from an Egyptian guy. We had never talked before but still, I told him it was not possible because I can't marry a muslim. He asked for my religion, I told him I'm christian then he let me know there was no problem because he can marry a christian woman. I told him I wanted my children to be christian, then he said no, the children had to be like their father. I refused so he told me "it's over", then he was gone. I suppose he was really searching for a spouse!!??
Hopefully, I'm not husband shopping on the net, otherwise I might had already gotten married to a 20 year old Indian sikh living in Uttar Pradesh who also wanted to marry me; that was one day after he had told me about this european girl he was going to marry someday, he even had her picture on his profile at the time!
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Hairs, America and memory power
I was able to get a clearer look at Dozy's hairs. -I know what your thinking, 'not those hairs again...'-. Well, they still had a few strings hanging out but they looked better this time, knotted on top of Dozy's head. Whether Dozy has his cam on or not, his usual good mood is very contagious.
I like talking to people from America, by America I mean the whole continent north, south and central, they at least know where my country is. I met a Canadian who also knew the name of our former president, and also the fact that Wyclef Jean was from Haiti. I tried to impress him myself by telling him I knew about Terry Fox, it seemed to have worked... until I told him I first read about this famous Canadian from a children's book -what's wrong with that?-. I did do some Internet research on Terry Fox after reading about him...
I've been told more than once by my Indian net-friends mostly that I have good memory and each time it was for a detail that I actually remembered and not one that I had retrieved form my archives. I remembered where Sunny was on New Year's Eve, I remembered Ravi's hometown, these don't seem like the hardest things to remember.
I like talking to people from America, by America I mean the whole continent north, south and central, they at least know where my country is. I met a Canadian who also knew the name of our former president, and also the fact that Wyclef Jean was from Haiti. I tried to impress him myself by telling him I knew about Terry Fox, it seemed to have worked... until I told him I first read about this famous Canadian from a children's book -what's wrong with that?-. I did do some Internet research on Terry Fox after reading about him...
I've been told more than once by my Indian net-friends mostly that I have good memory and each time it was for a detail that I actually remembered and not one that I had retrieved form my archives. I remembered where Sunny was on New Year's Eve, I remembered Ravi's hometown, these don't seem like the hardest things to remember.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Who's this?
How can you really tell whom you're chatting with?
At the university, we used to group chat, one student would log with his ID, would meet people and we would either take turns at writing to her (yeah, mostly girls), or we would suggest to the typist what he should write. Therefore the girl was not talking to a single person but rather to a group of people without even knowing it.
I was talking to a young Indian man (26, Andhra Pradesh) whom I had met last year. The last time we chatted was in September 2004 -that's what my archive says-. I always thought of him as a nice guy, hard worker who takes time off work only when he's sick. I was quite surprised to see him online for two days in a row at this time instead of seeing him on sms like he used to be. I thought I said 'hi' to him.
We started talking and it was clear from his first few messages that there was something really different about him. I felt I was talking to a whole other person, then again how can I know for sure? I told him about it and he told me why he is different now, he was engaged, I thought, yes I can believe that, a girl can have that effect on a guy's life. But still, 'Sumit', just seemed to be someone I had never chatted with before, as much as I enjoyed talking to him last year I was not enjoying a bit of the conversation I was having with this guy.
He sounded like all those other strange people, asking me to always be his friend and all that kind of stuff, Sumit used to call me 'dude', he never talked to me that way. He sounded like he was hit on the head and became all jolly and started seeing life in pink. He had become so sensitive...
I told him my surprise and doubts. Then he told me he was in a life threatening accident and after escaping with minor bruises he decided to change his attitude towards life and towards people.
I kindda had a hard time swallowing that, since, he told me he was in his 'car' and was hit by a truck that made a U-turn in the middle of a street. He told me he lives in Delhi, as far as I can remember, I knew Sumit lived in Andhra Pradesh, though I am not 100% sure since it's been a long time since he had told me and of course I don't have the archive of our first conversation.
The first time we talked he was calling me 'dude' and now he is worried I would not want to be his 'friend' again because he was engaged, and that I would be jealous of his wife-to-be. That's odd, since last year he told me that his parents would start searching for a spouse for him during this year and at that time there were no worries about me being jealous. And again, I don't even remember him calling me 'friend' not even once and now there is this sudden attachment to me!
No, I'm sorry but I can't believe it. Still, he did tell me a few details that seemed to indicate that he is the same young man I chatted with last year, like the fact that we usually start talking a little while before my lunch time, that I was not wearing my hair down in the picture of me that he had seen, that I live in Haiti and that there was a natural disaster in my country last year and we talked about it.
I don't know if there is anything he can do to prove to me that he is the one he claims to be but I still am reluctant to believe him. One thing is for sure; I was not talking to the Sumit I once knew.
At the university, we used to group chat, one student would log with his ID, would meet people and we would either take turns at writing to her (yeah, mostly girls), or we would suggest to the typist what he should write. Therefore the girl was not talking to a single person but rather to a group of people without even knowing it.
I was talking to a young Indian man (26, Andhra Pradesh) whom I had met last year. The last time we chatted was in September 2004 -that's what my archive says-. I always thought of him as a nice guy, hard worker who takes time off work only when he's sick. I was quite surprised to see him online for two days in a row at this time instead of seeing him on sms like he used to be. I thought I said 'hi' to him.
We started talking and it was clear from his first few messages that there was something really different about him. I felt I was talking to a whole other person, then again how can I know for sure? I told him about it and he told me why he is different now, he was engaged, I thought, yes I can believe that, a girl can have that effect on a guy's life. But still, 'Sumit', just seemed to be someone I had never chatted with before, as much as I enjoyed talking to him last year I was not enjoying a bit of the conversation I was having with this guy.
He sounded like all those other strange people, asking me to always be his friend and all that kind of stuff, Sumit used to call me 'dude', he never talked to me that way. He sounded like he was hit on the head and became all jolly and started seeing life in pink. He had become so sensitive...
I told him my surprise and doubts. Then he told me he was in a life threatening accident and after escaping with minor bruises he decided to change his attitude towards life and towards people.
I kindda had a hard time swallowing that, since, he told me he was in his 'car' and was hit by a truck that made a U-turn in the middle of a street. He told me he lives in Delhi, as far as I can remember, I knew Sumit lived in Andhra Pradesh, though I am not 100% sure since it's been a long time since he had told me and of course I don't have the archive of our first conversation.
The first time we talked he was calling me 'dude' and now he is worried I would not want to be his 'friend' again because he was engaged, and that I would be jealous of his wife-to-be. That's odd, since last year he told me that his parents would start searching for a spouse for him during this year and at that time there were no worries about me being jealous. And again, I don't even remember him calling me 'friend' not even once and now there is this sudden attachment to me!
No, I'm sorry but I can't believe it. Still, he did tell me a few details that seemed to indicate that he is the same young man I chatted with last year, like the fact that we usually start talking a little while before my lunch time, that I was not wearing my hair down in the picture of me that he had seen, that I live in Haiti and that there was a natural disaster in my country last year and we talked about it.
I don't know if there is anything he can do to prove to me that he is the one he claims to be but I still am reluctant to believe him. One thing is for sure; I was not talking to the Sumit I once knew.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Liars, liars, liars -or- A very long post
So it's happened to everybody who's been in a chat room before. You talk to someone, he gives you basic information about himself, age, sex, location, and then after a while, he tells you, that at least one of these infos was wrong, "i'm a m", I'm really 16, my name is not John. You get the idea.
This is the story about a lie that went really far. And I thought I was a nice girl.=^_^=
I'm in a room, my room, and I meet someone, among others, who seems to be a guy and is interested in talking to me, nothing unusual so far. Inside the room, he was insisting I told him my name, of course I said no as usual, and as a reflex I asked whether he was an Indian, he didn't actually answer that question.
He sent me a personal message and we started a private conversation. He started by telling me his name, location and asking whether I wanted to know anything else about him. -Impressive, unusual, therefore interesting-. My name is Brian C., I'm from North Brisbane, Australia. I didn't even know there was a North Brisbane somewhere in Australia.
I liked that attitude and I told him my first name -I know it's no big deal-. I did not know or check which time zone North Brisbane was in but I did locate it on the Australia map.
One thing about a lie is that you have to maintain it, live by it. 'Brian' slept at about 3am or 4am -so he told me- on the days we chatted, he used the word 'mate' when talking about his male friends. I did not have much to say about his English considering that what he was using was actually 'chat language'. We spoke for a few days. 'Brian' was hilarious, funny, talkative, unpredictable, nice... I liked Brian. He put a lot of 'animation' in my room especially when he told them that I was a man (!!!), hopefully only one person in there seemed to take him seriously. We even went room hoping together; so many laughs, so much fun...He read my blog, -some parts of it at least - and he came out of it with the impression that most guys I chat with were hitting on me (really?).
'Brian' gave my ID to his 'Indian friend' 'Ankit'. He told me he had an Indian nickname guddu and he used the word 'ya' a lot -you smell something?-.
I suppose the indian nickname thing just slipped because when I asked 'Brian' what guddu meant he just told me he did not know.
Unlike 'Brian', his friend 'Ankit' was very calm, he spoke (wrote) slowly, took his time and had many interesting things to say about Brian, like: how I would have a crush on him if I saw him, how he ignores him when he's chatting with girls and how he's lucky to be able to attract girls so easily and also how he likes to remain unrevealed to the girls - I was telling 'Brian' a few days earlier that I liked to remain "unrevealed"-. Lucky Brian... Without even noticing it I had spent 2 hours talking to 'Ankit', I had never spent so much time talking to 'Brian' probably because he would have said much more in less time than 'Ankit'.
It seems that when I spoke to 'Brian' after talking to 'Ankit', our conversation would reflect in part something that I had said earlier to 'Ankit', and the same happened when I had a conversation with 'Brian' before talking with 'Ankit', 'Brian' ends up bringing up something that I was saying to 'Ankit' a while before... And so on.
I felt like writing about 'Brian' since the first time we chatted, there was so much I could have said then; but many little details about him and his 'friend' were bothering me.
'Brian' was going to see a movie with his friends, I thought: "Star wars" and he said, no it's not out yet over here, I thought "funny cause Rizal saw it and he lives in Perth". All Brian had to say about it is, "I have to check that". Then of course there is his 'Indian' nickname "guddu".
'Ankit' and 'Brian' have a lot in common, they even use similar language, and they seem to know each other very well and they both have yahoo IDs ending with 1985.
And finally, I knew for a fact that Brian had read my blog, but surprisingly enough, when I checked my counter statistics, I had no entries from North Brisbane, I had only two Australian visitors, Rizal from Perth and a stranger from another location in Australia.
I did not doubt Brian from the start, but as I was getting ready to post something about him and I wanted to be sure that I would not look like a fool after writing enthusiastically about this young Aussie only to have to write later on that he had played a bad joke on me.
As my doubts grew with the days, I needed to check where exactly in the world 'Brian' was. I gave him a link to one of my post pages and what do you know, 'Brian' is actually in India -not a big surprise-.
I asked Brian to tell me the truth, "...I told you the truth about myself..., why did you lie to me...?" "...where do you live?..."
Unfortunately he kept on lying, I guess he was just not expecting these questions and probably felt bad about lying and maybe thought I would "dump" him when I discover the truth -ok, so maybe he doesn't really care-.
When I told him I knew for a fact that he was currently in India he had no choice but to admit being an Indian living in Mumbai and that he had given me a friend's asl. -What do you know...-.
I was mad, rightfully mad; he had lied to me for no reason at all... I felt like an idiot. The name, the location, and what else, is there any truth in all he's been telling me?
The worst part of this is that my mood was obvious to other people. Which brings me to Kayvian. Kayvian told me the words I needed to hear (read), to get this episode behind me, he told me to chill, and reminded me that I met enough people on the net. I was spoiling the conversation with a nice person (Kayvian) because of a few lies I had a hard time digesting.
'Brian' who is really(?) Pankaj did say he was sorry and was afraid I would be angry at him -what did you expect-. He told me everything else is true except the name and location. I suppose one of the reasons I took this so bad is because Brian or Pankaj is someone I actually enjoyed chatting with.
I became a little paranoid afterwards, I was starting to think that maybe 'Ankit' and 'Brian' were the exact same person I gave 'Ankit' a hard time when he came online later that day. I pressured him to tell me the truth, he did apologize, what more could he do, Pankaj (ex-Brian) told me that he brought 'Ankit' into this and that it was not his fault. At some point I even thought it was Dhruv playing a joke on me...
I suppose I believe people too easily because I actually believe what they tell me now. I suppose I could choose not to believe them but I would have nothing to gain from that and I must admit that I'm a little tired playing detectives with those kids, I have better things to do, honest people to talk to. Then again Pankaj told me he would come back online only in November(!), and since Pankaj has been offline, Ankit has been too...
This is the story about a lie that went really far. And I thought I was a nice girl.=^_^=
I'm in a room, my room, and I meet someone, among others, who seems to be a guy and is interested in talking to me, nothing unusual so far. Inside the room, he was insisting I told him my name, of course I said no as usual, and as a reflex I asked whether he was an Indian, he didn't actually answer that question.
He sent me a personal message and we started a private conversation. He started by telling me his name, location and asking whether I wanted to know anything else about him. -Impressive, unusual, therefore interesting-. My name is Brian C., I'm from North Brisbane, Australia. I didn't even know there was a North Brisbane somewhere in Australia.
I liked that attitude and I told him my first name -I know it's no big deal-. I did not know or check which time zone North Brisbane was in but I did locate it on the Australia map.
One thing about a lie is that you have to maintain it, live by it. 'Brian' slept at about 3am or 4am -so he told me- on the days we chatted, he used the word 'mate' when talking about his male friends. I did not have much to say about his English considering that what he was using was actually 'chat language'. We spoke for a few days. 'Brian' was hilarious, funny, talkative, unpredictable, nice... I liked Brian. He put a lot of 'animation' in my room especially when he told them that I was a man (!!!), hopefully only one person in there seemed to take him seriously. We even went room hoping together; so many laughs, so much fun...He read my blog, -some parts of it at least - and he came out of it with the impression that most guys I chat with were hitting on me (really?).
'Brian' gave my ID to his 'Indian friend' 'Ankit'. He told me he had an Indian nickname guddu and he used the word 'ya' a lot -you smell something?-.
I suppose the indian nickname thing just slipped because when I asked 'Brian' what guddu meant he just told me he did not know.
Unlike 'Brian', his friend 'Ankit' was very calm, he spoke (wrote) slowly, took his time and had many interesting things to say about Brian, like: how I would have a crush on him if I saw him, how he ignores him when he's chatting with girls and how he's lucky to be able to attract girls so easily and also how he likes to remain unrevealed to the girls - I was telling 'Brian' a few days earlier that I liked to remain "unrevealed"-. Lucky Brian... Without even noticing it I had spent 2 hours talking to 'Ankit', I had never spent so much time talking to 'Brian' probably because he would have said much more in less time than 'Ankit'.
It seems that when I spoke to 'Brian' after talking to 'Ankit', our conversation would reflect in part something that I had said earlier to 'Ankit', and the same happened when I had a conversation with 'Brian' before talking with 'Ankit', 'Brian' ends up bringing up something that I was saying to 'Ankit' a while before... And so on.
I felt like writing about 'Brian' since the first time we chatted, there was so much I could have said then; but many little details about him and his 'friend' were bothering me.
'Brian' was going to see a movie with his friends, I thought: "Star wars" and he said, no it's not out yet over here, I thought "funny cause Rizal saw it and he lives in Perth". All Brian had to say about it is, "I have to check that". Then of course there is his 'Indian' nickname "guddu".
'Ankit' and 'Brian' have a lot in common, they even use similar language, and they seem to know each other very well and they both have yahoo IDs ending with 1985.
And finally, I knew for a fact that Brian had read my blog, but surprisingly enough, when I checked my counter statistics, I had no entries from North Brisbane, I had only two Australian visitors, Rizal from Perth and a stranger from another location in Australia.
I did not doubt Brian from the start, but as I was getting ready to post something about him and I wanted to be sure that I would not look like a fool after writing enthusiastically about this young Aussie only to have to write later on that he had played a bad joke on me.
As my doubts grew with the days, I needed to check where exactly in the world 'Brian' was. I gave him a link to one of my post pages and what do you know, 'Brian' is actually in India -not a big surprise-.
I asked Brian to tell me the truth, "...I told you the truth about myself..., why did you lie to me...?" "...where do you live?..."
Unfortunately he kept on lying, I guess he was just not expecting these questions and probably felt bad about lying and maybe thought I would "dump" him when I discover the truth -ok, so maybe he doesn't really care-.
When I told him I knew for a fact that he was currently in India he had no choice but to admit being an Indian living in Mumbai and that he had given me a friend's asl. -What do you know...-.
I was mad, rightfully mad; he had lied to me for no reason at all... I felt like an idiot. The name, the location, and what else, is there any truth in all he's been telling me?
The worst part of this is that my mood was obvious to other people. Which brings me to Kayvian. Kayvian told me the words I needed to hear (read), to get this episode behind me, he told me to chill, and reminded me that I met enough people on the net. I was spoiling the conversation with a nice person (Kayvian) because of a few lies I had a hard time digesting.
'Brian' who is really(?) Pankaj did say he was sorry and was afraid I would be angry at him -what did you expect-. He told me everything else is true except the name and location. I suppose one of the reasons I took this so bad is because Brian or Pankaj is someone I actually enjoyed chatting with.
I became a little paranoid afterwards, I was starting to think that maybe 'Ankit' and 'Brian' were the exact same person I gave 'Ankit' a hard time when he came online later that day. I pressured him to tell me the truth, he did apologize, what more could he do, Pankaj (ex-Brian) told me that he brought 'Ankit' into this and that it was not his fault. At some point I even thought it was Dhruv playing a joke on me...
I suppose I believe people too easily because I actually believe what they tell me now. I suppose I could choose not to believe them but I would have nothing to gain from that and I must admit that I'm a little tired playing detectives with those kids, I have better things to do, honest people to talk to. Then again Pankaj told me he would come back online only in November(!), and since Pankaj has been offline, Ankit has been too...
Monday, June 13, 2005
Kayvian
Kayvian (26,Mumbai) has one of those unfamiliar names which spelling I can remember without any effort -probably because his name and yahoo ID are the same-. He is one of those rare people who actually talk with others inside chat rooms. He is also funny on the occasion.
According to Kayvian, we first chatted about my blog. He was a little excited and embarrassed at the same time about the fact that I would write about him on my blog. I felt like a celebrity writer!... He asked how come I was into programming and not into editorial? -I'm not sure my writing skills are so good!!!-
We have not talked too much but I have enjoyed our short conversations. I like the ways he's answers my interrogations, the way he seems to pay lots of attention to the things that I tell him even when they have nothing to do with him. A nice guy.
According to Kayvian, we first chatted about my blog. He was a little excited and embarrassed at the same time about the fact that I would write about him on my blog. I felt like a celebrity writer!... He asked how come I was into programming and not into editorial? -I'm not sure my writing skills are so good!!!-
We have not talked too much but I have enjoyed our short conversations. I like the ways he's answers my interrogations, the way he seems to pay lots of attention to the things that I tell him even when they have nothing to do with him. A nice guy.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Dhruv - or - What a blog post can do
Ahww! I'm finally writing about someone who writes more than I do when we chat -at least that's what my offline archive reader says-. I have introduced you to "Dhruv" (21,India) in "Misadventure in chat land".
Well, it started out on an ordinary chatting evening, I was searching for chatters who have web sites -yeah I'll just let you wonder why-. I suppose he sent me a PM first -probably-. It was a rocky start, I was only interested in people with web sites and he wasn't one of them, I was on my way to move on.
But he did say something to me that made me think I should add him to my list so I can talk to him on another day -I really had to leave-. Talking about how busy girls are in Indian rooms he said: "the girl boy ratio is 2:8". And I thought "oh this guy sounds interesting", I mean do you imagine the average chatter saying something like that -I don't- I sensed the potential, there could be 'interesting' chatting sessions between us in the near future.
I insisted I could not stay but I guess he thought I just did not want to talk to him -the ignore feature is very efficient for that-. I stayed longer than I should have (30 extra minutes), we had a misunderstanding, he thought I was a "punjbai charm" :)),- we still get a few of those (misunderstandings) once in a while-. He has a 'unique' English, usually well chosen words but odd syntax (grammar), I don't always decode his messages successfully, you can tell that I'm not into all those chat codes.
Now, things got really 'interesting' when we 'saw' each other. He was so surpriiiiiiiiiiiised to see that I was black and I thought the young man in his picture was Caucasian (i.e. white). He was like "show me your real picture" and I was like "you're kidding me, this is not you". He turned his cam on and I had to accept the fact that it was him, the picture looked like a still from his web cam I still thought he looked white and with his trendy glasses he looked more like an American high-schooler than a 21-year-old Indian. He thought I was from Punjab so he could not believe I was black -I agree, that would be quite unusual- . As he put it "[his] dreams where shattered". Yep, shattering someone's dreams is also something you can do on a first chat :D. –
Dhruv is very talkative and he is very interested in internet related topics, he's always downloading something, he has used booters (!) and still uses YIM add-ons to do things like see who's using the stealth settings to appear invisible to him -at least that's what he told me!...- He can get really 'enthusiastic' when talking about computer related topics.
It seemed, thought, that after that first day, our chats became more 'polite', Dhruv would say 'formal'. But one event was about to change that, first I got 'booted' -at least I think I did- I told him about it and he told me about Yahlite, then I wrote about it and the next thing I know people where coming to my site from Yahoo Search and Google. The story goes on but it all started with what he told me. I just had to tell him what happened, and have him read the post where I mentioned him. Not only did he read it but he also seemed to have dug deeper than anyone else has ever dug all the way into my archives. I'm not sure how to describe what happened afterwards, it was just great, we had so much fun when he came back from this reading session, he's even thinking about starting his own blog -a few days ago he had no clue what a blog was :))-.
Well, it started out on an ordinary chatting evening, I was searching for chatters who have web sites -yeah I'll just let you wonder why-. I suppose he sent me a PM first -probably-. It was a rocky start, I was only interested in people with web sites and he wasn't one of them, I was on my way to move on.
But he did say something to me that made me think I should add him to my list so I can talk to him on another day -I really had to leave-. Talking about how busy girls are in Indian rooms he said: "the girl boy ratio is 2:8". And I thought "oh this guy sounds interesting", I mean do you imagine the average chatter saying something like that -I don't- I sensed the potential, there could be 'interesting' chatting sessions between us in the near future.
I insisted I could not stay but I guess he thought I just did not want to talk to him -the ignore feature is very efficient for that-. I stayed longer than I should have (30 extra minutes), we had a misunderstanding, he thought I was a "punjbai charm" :)),- we still get a few of those (misunderstandings) once in a while-. He has a 'unique' English, usually well chosen words but odd syntax (grammar), I don't always decode his messages successfully, you can tell that I'm not into all those chat codes.
Now, things got really 'interesting' when we 'saw' each other. He was so surpriiiiiiiiiiiised to see that I was black and I thought the young man in his picture was Caucasian (i.e. white). He was like "show me your real picture" and I was like "you're kidding me, this is not you". He turned his cam on and I had to accept the fact that it was him, the picture looked like a still from his web cam I still thought he looked white and with his trendy glasses he looked more like an American high-schooler than a 21-year-old Indian. He thought I was from Punjab so he could not believe I was black -I agree, that would be quite unusual- . As he put it "[his] dreams where shattered". Yep, shattering someone's dreams is also something you can do on a first chat :D. –
Dhruv is very talkative and he is very interested in internet related topics, he's always downloading something, he has used booters (!) and still uses YIM add-ons to do things like see who's using the stealth settings to appear invisible to him -at least that's what he told me!...- He can get really 'enthusiastic' when talking about computer related topics.
It seemed, thought, that after that first day, our chats became more 'polite', Dhruv would say 'formal'. But one event was about to change that, first I got 'booted' -at least I think I did- I told him about it and he told me about Yahlite, then I wrote about it and the next thing I know people where coming to my site from Yahoo Search and Google. The story goes on but it all started with what he told me. I just had to tell him what happened, and have him read the post where I mentioned him. Not only did he read it but he also seemed to have dug deeper than anyone else has ever dug all the way into my archives. I'm not sure how to describe what happened afterwards, it was just great, we had so much fun when he came back from this reading session, he's even thinking about starting his own blog -a few days ago he had no clue what a blog was :))-.
Ravi
Ravi is one of those people I have been chatting with since last year -I don't remember when we started exactly-. He is about one year older than I and we both work as programmers. He did not see the point in me writing about him here -really?-, but he had no objections -that's Ravi alright-.
Until recently, every time I saw a picture of him, it was like seeing a different person, in one he looked very young and shaved, in another he would look big, old, with a huge mustache and in another one he would look slim with a tiny mustache, and in another one he would have yet a totally different appearance. The problem is he was not showing me these pictures in chronological order.
I have told my name to Ravi, but he still calls me "freed", that's how he's been calling since the first time we chatted. Why he calls me that? Because it's short for "freedhook", the ID I was using when I first chatted with him -I know I have too many IDs-. He is one of those people who probably thought I was a guy at first, it seems that even though I told him I'm a woman, he did not pay too much attention to that detail at the time.
Until recently, every time I saw a picture of him, it was like seeing a different person, in one he looked very young and shaved, in another he would look big, old, with a huge mustache and in another one he would look slim with a tiny mustache, and in another one he would have yet a totally different appearance. The problem is he was not showing me these pictures in chronological order.
I have told my name to Ravi, but he still calls me "freed", that's how he's been calling since the first time we chatted. Why he calls me that? Because it's short for "freedhook", the ID I was using when I first chatted with him -I know I have too many IDs-. He is one of those people who probably thought I was a guy at first, it seems that even though I told him I'm a woman, he did not pay too much attention to that detail at the time.
How old are you?
It's amazing how people will lie about their age for apparently no reason.
I'm talking to a young man from South Africa, he tells me he's 18 -oh! a young one!, I thought- then, he invites me to view his web cam: he looked like a kid. So I tell him, ''you look young'', more like 16, and he admits being only 15 (!!!).
I'm wondering just how many people lied to me about their age (?). I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, I accept what they say but I don't put faith in it, it's not like they can actually prove any of what they say about themselves!
I'm talking to a young man from South Africa, he tells me he's 18 -oh! a young one!, I thought- then, he invites me to view his web cam: he looked like a kid. So I tell him, ''you look young'', more like 16, and he admits being only 15 (!!!).
I'm wondering just how many people lied to me about their age (?). I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, I accept what they say but I don't put faith in it, it's not like they can actually prove any of what they say about themselves!
Friday, June 03, 2005
Top 12
The twelve questions I am asked the most
1. asl
meaning: age sex location
2. how r u
3. where u from
I guess the asl is not enough(!?) for some or maybe they are just not sure what or where Haiti is
4.ur age
5. u have cam
no I don't, hopefully!
6. u have a pic
not now...
7. what is ur name
if I tell them, most will forget it before the end of the conversation
8. what r ur hobbies
euh,hmm,huh,mmmm
9. r u married
no
10. u have mic
no
11. u have a boyfriend
why? you're interested?
12. are u there
I'm either busy or tired or bored or just disconnected
1. asl
meaning: age sex location
2. how r u
3. where u from
I guess the asl is not enough(!?) for some or maybe they are just not sure what or where Haiti is
4.ur age
5. u have cam
no I don't, hopefully!
6. u have a pic
not now...
7. what is ur name
if I tell them, most will forget it before the end of the conversation
8. what r ur hobbies
euh,hmm,huh,mmmm
9. r u married
no
10. u have mic
no
11. u have a boyfriend
why? you're interested?
12. are u there
I'm either busy or tired or bored or just disconnected
Maybe the last update on Pablo
Pablo (see Day 1, Day 3, Day 6 and maybe a few other posts), surprised me maybe for the last time. After a few weeks of chatting and getting along very well, being surprised day after day by that young man, I was really enjoying communicating with him. He gave me the ultimate surprise.
Pablo is someone I have trusted with 'information' that I don't give to others -naive girl-, he is a person I appreciate a lot even though we 'only' chat.
In the past, I would rarely ask guys or gals whether they were married or not, I didn't care since I didn't think it would make any difference. I might have been wrong and what happened with Pablo made me change my attitude a little bit.
Even though I did actually ask him whether he was married -I must admit I was just playing because I sincerely did not think he was- and he did answer no. He came back after about a week without chatting with me and told me he had lied(?) and that he is actually married (WHAT!!!!!!). Really hard to believe, I was speechless...
I did not understand why he felt the need to lie or why he did not tell me the truth earlier.
I'm not mad at him for that -oh well I probably will never know exactly how many times I've been lied to on Y!messenger- but he does not come online as often or at the same times anymore therefore I don't think we will be saying much to each other in the days/weeks or even months to come.
Pablo is someone I have trusted with 'information' that I don't give to others -naive girl-, he is a person I appreciate a lot even though we 'only' chat.
In the past, I would rarely ask guys or gals whether they were married or not, I didn't care since I didn't think it would make any difference. I might have been wrong and what happened with Pablo made me change my attitude a little bit.
Even though I did actually ask him whether he was married -I must admit I was just playing because I sincerely did not think he was- and he did answer no. He came back after about a week without chatting with me and told me he had lied(?) and that he is actually married (WHAT!!!!!!). Really hard to believe, I was speechless...
I did not understand why he felt the need to lie or why he did not tell me the truth earlier.
I'm not mad at him for that -oh well I probably will never know exactly how many times I've been lied to on Y!messenger- but he does not come online as often or at the same times anymore therefore I don't think we will be saying much to each other in the days/weeks or even months to come.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
It's all about hairs
Ok, so I finally saw Dozy's "hairs". After customary salutations,he asked me, "You want to see hairs?" "...see...".Well, I saw as much as you can see while viewing images taken by a web cam in a room with very little light. I could barely recognize Dozy, as a matter of fact I did not recognize him, his hair was all fuzzy, little strings hanging out all over his head, I'll say it needs a conditioning shampoo and then a blow dry to have it looking neat and maybe also some anti-static serum or lotion. I wanted to see the actual length of his hair but the connection was awful and I did not get that chance.
A note to anybody reading this: do not take what I write here too seriously.
A note to anybody reading this: do not take what I write here too seriously.
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