By Jo Huang
It was a rainy night, I came back to my dorm from a concert and found that I forgot to bring the key when leaving my room in the afternoon. It was around two o'clock in the morning, the rain was heavy, and I was exhausted. Standing outside the dorm, something miserable occurred to me–I did not know where to go. Actually I don’t have many friends in Taipei. Just as I was hanging around looking at several couples walking on campus and having no idea what to do, suddenly, a kind face appeared in my mind. Without further hesitation, I made a call to my net friend, Aerial. She had just finished taking a shower, and was about to go to bed, but as soon as she heard about my woeful situation, she hung up the phone and came to pick me up. Staying in her small and comfortable room I really slept well. The first time we knew each other was on the BBS. Both of us like the same singer, Bobby Chen, so we discussed his music on Bobby’s bulletin board several times. Some articles she posted really moved me. I had never thought that there would be such a sentimental girl who adores Bobby just like I do. We share the same experience being Bobby’s “super fans,” buying all of his CDs, reading all of his books, and going to his concerts. I began to believe that if we were friends, we would have many common topics to discuss. Therefore, I sent e-mail to her, saying that I really wanted to make friends with her. She agreed. On a full-moon night with a refreshing breeze, I had a date with Aerial and another net friend on Bobby’s board, Sunrise. We met in a little pub near the train station. I will never forget that it was so noisy that we had to speak in very loud voices in order to be heard. However, nobody suggested to move to another place, so we just “roared” to each other the whole night, chatting about our favorite singer. I was happybecause Aerial, Sunrise, and I had the same things to share with each other; we had become intimate friends even though it was our first meeting. We had only talked several times on the internet before. In spite of the fact that we got to know each other only from a screen and words, I never cared about what they looked loke; the only thing I knew was that some of my thoughts could relate to theirs. I wanted to make friends with them, not because of their appearance or position, but because of the similarities we share. This is quite different from the way I made friends before. In the past, I mean, before I learned to use the internet, most of my friends were from school, classes or clubs, so how could I find a friend who appreciates Bobby Chen as much as I do? Where could I always find a friend who is able to discuss music or movies with me? It is possible to find such friends in life, but it is not so easy, unless you log on to the internet or the BBS. Enter the board that you are interested in and you can easily find many people who have the same interests as you. Furthermore, net friends usually live in a different world from mine. Some of them come from southern schools, and some are so-called “office ladies.” Making acquaintance with these friends leads me to a more colorful life and broadens my field of vision. For example, Aerial is three years older than I am, and she works in a trading company; when we became closer friends, we often talked not only about Bobby Chen, but also her office life. As for Sunrise, I learned a lot about computers from him since he is a Ph.D. in computer science. I regard Aerial and Sunrise as my “truly good friends” instead of just “net friends.” In fact, I am not fond of the title “net friend” so much. It sounds like a mechanical friend who suggests danger or something strange. One thing I want to emphasize is that except for meeting them on the internet, they are not at all different from the friends I’ve met in the “real world.” a
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May 2024
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