I was born in 1988, I'm officially 30. While technically I never got to see the birth of the internet, I remember it differently sometimes. More nostalgically. The summer that never ended. When I was in my adolescent years, I chatted with dozens of people a day. Some I never got to meet in person. Some I did. People from all over the world. Our gateway drugs to the internet were things like IRC, MSN, AOL. Never was a big ICQ person, but I guess that counts. Adium was always on. I don't quite remember how I met these fleeting, ephemeral, personal contacts. Mostly through web rings, PHPbb forums, personal reference. We talked so much, about everything. "how's your day". "what do you think about Bush", "hey I saw your del.icio.us link". Of course that faded, to make place for Twitter and Facebook. And at first, that was great. But it feels different now. So different, that I've removed myself from all social media. "social media". It's all influencers (a word my dictionary doesn't even recognize), bots, hate speech, bickering, identity politics, and what have you. What happened?

I miss those days sometimes. Maybe it's just rose colored glasses of my puberty years. But you know, nothing fundamentally changed about my lifestyle. The internet changed. I'm still self employed, child-free ... what do you call it these days: geek, nerd? you know the slightly overweight guy with a telescope that won't shut up about how great Babylon 5 was. Where do these people hang out these days? If they just want to have a nice chat, unrelated to work, about the stuff that interests them? Seems like a Silly Valley opportunity. But what do I know. I miss the old internet.

Maybe this should just be named "how to make friends in your 30s" instead. It's different world out there, but I miss talking to people I've never met. Learn about their lives, be part of it somehow. And they, part of mine in return. I guess there's no turning back from the bots.