Magic-Box Pals

WITH the average age of Net users going down progressively, one would imagine the new recruits to be in their diapers, pacifier in mouth and eyes on screen surfing the Net for formula milk substitutes. But the profile of the Net’s latest catch is a bit different. He isn’t a seasoned geek. He’s rather a reluctant acolyte who’s turned to the Net for some good-old fashioned TLC. He’s also someone who has-in the middle-class scheme of things-been there and done it all. Someone who has been married once, has kids and a good job, is not given to an unhealthy amount of socialising and perhaps still harbours fancy notions about matrimony. He’s probably not as well-versed in the art of downloading MP3 soundtracks, using search engines to find porn sites or Netsurfing to get university admissions as some of his younger contemporaries are. But he has a lot of real time to spare. In the beginning, he may have been a tad cyber-unfriendly but he’s a fast learner, who’s using the info highway for what it’s worth, maybe more!

"It helps if you’re not a very sociable type," avers Jessie Joseph, 43, a school-teacher who has recently found love on the Net, thanks to a friend who introduced her to online classifieds. Divorced for 12 years and with two teenage sons, Joseph is now to meet her online beau in the UK. She met him after a friend suggested she put her profile on Rediff online’s romance page. At first her "honest profile" got scant attention. Then she snipped 20 years off her resume. This time the hits came pouring in, but they were largely from libidinous teens or teen-pretenders (who sometimes got straight to the point asking for cyber sex or a romp on the sly). But her patience with the honest profile paid off. "I met two or three very nice people...a very nice-sounding chap from IIT Bombay and a whole pile of married men willing to have ‘confidential relationships’."

While some of Joseph’s Net pals stayed just friends, she has found someone who’s become something more. "There’s no way I’d have met Kevin in real life, considering our entirely different spheres of existence," she says. Kevin, an American who’s also divorced and is in his 50s, was actually seeking Indians given his interest in Vedanta and Hindu philosophy.

Although not all are looking for partnership, it does help if you can net a good human being. Sunaina Maitri, 43, another neo-convert, has yet to find a partner but she has met in flesh and blood some of her Net pals. "A lot of people on ICQ are game players. That’s why I don’t talk to people whose information sheets are incomplete," she says. She also admits that "we all hold back truth in reality, but it happens more on the Net."

Maitri, a chartered accountant from London who turned to textile designing soon after her divorce, turned to the Net essentially to network with her overseas clients scattered across different time zones. But gradually business and pleasure coalesced to form one helluva socialising cartel. "After you’ve sorted out the trash, you really get to know people. Thanks to the Net I’ve realised that there are so many complicated people in this world. Also that the Indian man is at great pains coping with the new liberated Indian woman. All these guys I meet on the Net are either going through divorce or are having marriage problems," she reveals.

Maitri was a reluctant recruit in the beginning. "My friend put me on ICQ. In the beginning I ignored it. I said I had no time for such nonsense. He had put up a brief profile of mine... just the bare minimum! And time and again I’d have these messages popping up on the side of my screen, which I promptly ignored," she recalls. Now she has over 39 people in her ICQ list, though only seven to eight of them are good friends. These are people she’s met in person. "In the middle of the night if you have nothing to do... you can just get on to the Net and start talking and you know there would be someone out there willing to hear you out."

But not everyone starts with the single-minded intent of finding friends. Web designer Aniket Verma, 30 and recently divorced, went through the motions of cyber initiation-beginning with porn, moving on to chats-before finally logging on to www.ICQ.com and chatting up strangers to give vent to the loneliness he felt because of a crumbling marriage. But it was mostly a way to occupy himself. "Initially, I used to spend four to five hours on chats. Then I realised it was a waste of time because you don’t really get anywhere. Usually, you can’t rely on what people say on chats," he says today. But then, there are also those who don’t and who, like the American woman he’s currently dating, come to mean more than just anonymous pals. "I have this feeling she likes me a lot. I like her too and if things do materialise we’ll meet. Although I am not keeping a very rosy picture-the person who has expectations on the Net is a fool." The object of Verma’s online affection is a 32-year-old single mother in the US.

Ramesh Ranjan, 34, an architect by profession, has a similar story to tell. "Two-and-a-half years ago when I was separated from my wife I bought myself a 100-hour Net package. I started loafing around, went to some dating sites like American Singles online, etc. But didn’t find it very interesting. After a three-month hiatus, I started again. This time I met a lot of people." Including a visitor from far-off Russia. She was again someone he’d met on the Net, found a semblance of companionship with her and bingo she flew down to meet him. It’s another thing that nothing came out of it.

What is it that drives these mature adults into the invisible arms of virtual romance? Loneliness? Curiosity? Or the safety net of anonymity, especially after they’ve failed with the more traditional channels of mate-finding? It may be a bit of all of the above but the overriding factor is to find empathy, understanding and non-judgmental advice. "Everybody who’s on the Net is lonely. He has an unfulfilled emotional need. And that is met on the Net in a very safe way," says Ranjan. Thankfully the emotional need comes with its own screening mechanism. "When one’s lonely, one tends to be wary, which is good as it makes one extra cautious," says Joseph.

For Ranjan, the Net was a way of worming out of the depression caused by his legal separation and not being able to stay with his two-year-old daughter. "It was a time of introspection.... I didn’t like going out and meeting people," he says.

Though it may seem so but love isn’t all these lone rangers are seeking. Sometimes it’s the feeling of unbridled camaraderie and altruism. "Most guys my age are not looking for sex or marriage, they basically want companionship," says Joseph. Sometimes they also ask for things expected of good friends. "A friend wanted help in immigration so I put him on to a relative who was a diplomat and that sorted out things for him. Another wanted to know how to write textile quotations, so I gave him a sample," says Maitri. Ranjan recalls how he was updating his friend in Pakistan about news in his country when Gen Musharraf announced a coup and summarily shut down TV channels.

But like all good things online friendship and love too have a price. In cyber lingo it’s called smut. "There are people out there who use the Net to identify women they can sleep with. I get messages from people who tell me they’re absolutely crazy about me without knowing a thing about me; one person proposed to me as soon as we got talking," says Maitri. Ranjan, on the other hand, was plagued by vulgar calls from a girl who had picked up his number from his information sheet.

But meeting these cyber friends in real life is rarely a disappointment because by the time the messages graduate to swapping pictures, then to phonecalls and finally perhaps to a meeting, both parties have a fair idea of what to expect. Sometimes people brace themselves for nightmarish eventualities, just in case. "It’s exciting and scary at the same time. I won’t be surprised if everything falls through," says Joseph of her impending meeting. "But right now it’s more like wanting everything to turn out right."