I call them Chatfriends

It didn't strike me that 'chatfriend' is a term I coined myself until one of the chatters repeated it seemingly thoughtfully and commented that it was an interesting term.

I must admit that chatting for hours is not exactly healthy, like blogging, simply because it is not exactly reality.

I used to have a chatter that I chatted 7 hours straight with every Friday and Saturday. I was in love with him, without myself knowing. We didn't tell each other outright that we love each other seriously. We didn't have the courage I guess. The relationship was too perfect to be broken.

We didn't have an awkward moment of pause. We just kept on chatting as if we were in real world. He made me laugh out loud in front of the computer, often. He gave me good advice and listened to my grouse. Sometimes, he was like my inner voice, telling me what I should do.

It ended after I entered into a relationship with William. It was after that that we admitted, over emails, that we liked each other very much, but both of us also admitted that it would be a tough fight, given the distance. We were not able to promise each other anything.

He did warn me that William was a jerk because of some things that he observed, from what I told him. But I dismissed it as jealousy.

About one year after I married, so did he.

I didn't mention that he was an Indian because I don't see this as pertinent. I mentioned his race so as not to create the illusion that you can meet your perfect partner on the net. I'm a Chinese inside out. Honestly, if not for the fact that he was an Indian, I really might have waited for him if he did ask. His being indian, as a culture, was tied up with his religion which his mother so advocated that made me feel that it wasn't possible between us.

I've had numerous pleasant experiences meeting up chatters.

At first, I was reluctant to meet up after reading so many horror stories about date-rape or molest.

Another reason I didn't want to meet up was because I was worried that the chatter might find me ugly and walk away after seeing my real person. I've always been plagued by complexion problem and am incredibly self-conscious about it, although now I am aware that it's not an exactly a big issue.

A few male friends had told me how they abandoned the date upon knowing that their potential date was not what they had imagined. I didn't want that to happen to me as I deemed it as most insulting.

A few meetups later, a female friend told me how her chat date met her driving a Mercs and gave a lousy excuse of having another appointment and dropping her off just a short distance after. That only meant one thing: that he didn't find her attractive.

I didn't want to suffer the same fate, no matter how old I get, although I don't mind being the dumper.

But most meetups have been pleasant.

I usually make a disclaimer before I meet them: I am not interested in sex, so no touching.

Most of the time, they are polite in their approach or on the first date.

I had met chatfriends for:
- dinner at restaurants
- a drink at a Club
- lunch at a restaurant

However, after a meetup, usually, if the relationship doesn't proceed to the next level, the chat normally diminishes. And men do take not wanting to advance to another level as being uninterested quite quickly.

But it doesn't really matter to me as usually I would have prepared myself not to take these virtual relationships too hard or seriously, although there were at least two of them who made me hope that I could have been more responsive. I haven't fallen in love with any of them and I hope I won't.

Reasons I Love Chatrooms

I never see chatting as a skeleton in the cupboard.

If people were to ask, I would freely admit that I chat in chatrooms. In fact, to use the word 'admit' seems to suggest that online chatting is a dubious or dishonourable activity.

I'm aware that many men go into chatrooms to search for their preys. Actually, they want free sex. But they will not admit it. They will say,"Must have chemistry."

I always feel like laughing whenever they say that. Real cheapskates will not admit that they are cheapskates. They don't want to pay for sex, but they are desperate for it, so they go online to find it, hoping that some girl would be bluffed into becoming their 'girlfriend', which is just another name for 'free-sex partner'.

I have met my share of chatters who look for free sex, and I tell them straight in the chatbox that I am not keen and bye.

To me, people who go online to look for sex are plain desperate, ugly and/or fat, and most likely poor.

Oh, someone did say that he did not mind paying for sex. I said,"One million dollars." and he left, asking,"Diamond laced cun?"

He stated clearly that even an air-stewardess was paid just $300.

In a Singapore chatroom, you get lots of indian nationals pming (private messaging) you, simply because they flood the chatrooms. I'm not sure why indian nationals want to chat in Singapore chatrooms. Perhaps they exist in just about every possible chatroom, not just the Singapore ones, going by the sheer number of Indians in India.

So why do I chat?

Firstly, I don't have any other hobbies besides chatting.

Being a teacher doesn't allow you to have any hobby, really. After working for 10 hours straight in the school, the only thing you want to do when you finally get out of it is to lay sprawled on the bed, if not sit down on a couch to take a breather, before you embark on another bout of work again, at home.

You might wonder, how about weekends?

If we have work to do at home on weekday nights, what makes you think we don't have work on weekends?

I no longer believe in time management. Time management only applies when you don't have so many things that require your immediate attention to complete at the same time. In teaching, just about everything is needed immediately, tomorrow, by the end of this week. Time management applies when you are given decent timelines to complete your work, and give you time so that you have time to manage.

Whatever time we really have, we just want to spend it with our family, especially on coaching our own kid if we have one. We spend so much time churning out worksheets, lesson plans for others' kids that our own kids are not performing in school due to a lack of coaching. It's ironical that teachers' kids are being called out in class for not bringing homework, not completing homework, not bringing stationery, not bringing the test papers back, or not getting the Spelling book signed.

In what position am I to scold my students for not completing their work?

Alright, I digress, which usually happens in my posts.

I chat as an avenue for relieving boredom, adult exchanges mainly. It is something I would call a 'hobby', shameful as it might sound.

Secondly, as an escapism from the reality.

In real life, I'm a boring boring teacher. A married woman with two kids. No man will ever come near me for reasons other than work.

In a chatroom, I still assume the same identity. But because I enter a chatroom, it tags me as 'available', and that opens the conversations to other possibilities. We chat as perfect strangers, yet as virtual hi-bye friends.

Thirdly, as a frustration outlet.

I get to complain and grouse about my job to strangers. I can't complain to friends and family because it annoys them that I'm complaining all the time. And I know how it feels like to get annoyed by sheer complaints because William's complaints get to me too. Although I switch the subject of complaints most of the time, but it still evolves around my job, so it may not be a very pleasant thing to listen to someone grousing about her job all the time.

I also like the fact that I am able to enlighten people about what teaching is all about. Most people are still stuck in the era in which teachers just teach and mark and go home.

Thirdly, it makes me laugh.

Sometimes, I meet humorous and intelligent chatters in the chatroom, usually the more educated ones, such as a doctor and an engineer.

That sort of lighten the reality burden.

They make me laugh, not all the time, which makes it all the more hunt-worthy.

However, these 'humorours and intelligent' chatters usually do not orginate from Singapore. They hail mainly from India, Malaysia and other countries.

Singapore chatters are usually boring, to tell the truth.

They are incapable of starting with a witty line to spark your interest ie. 'hi', 'hi' and 'hi'.

Fourthly, as mad as it sounds, it gives me an avenue to express myself.

In reality, I'm painfully shy. I fumble at speech. I can't express myself or talk well. But I type fast (which comes with practice), and somehow, I express myself better in written form.

There are probably just too many to bother about in speaking ie. body language, facial expression, tone, intonation, psychological battle - I'm just thinking about how it is going to be like if I were to storm into that Photopress shop in Causeway Point to argue about my case - the 210 pictures I printed there were too dark or overexposed - versus my email to Fujifilm.

You take your time to craft what you want to say and create the tone in an unsuspecting way to let the person at the receiving end know how you feel. I will never be able to tell the salesperson,"I am very unhappy about ..." while I can do that in an email effortlessly eg. ''I'm very disappointed with the kind of quality delivered".

I'm sure there are other reasons I am not able to think of off-hand and these are probably just a few of the reasons that I chat.