Page 4 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run

Speaking of back in the day, maybe next time we talk you could tell me more about chat rooms. From what I can tell, there were tons of chat rooms on America Online, and people actually used them to chat!

i.e., have long conversations with one another.

No one talks online that way now. We argue in the comments section or do private messages, but that’s different—right?

Can you tell me more about that? It seems to me those spaces had a lot of freedoms that we don’t have now.

When I was reading chat room logs, it seemed freakin’ sad that they didn’t even anticipate that someday you’d be able to… well… become a troll and dox people with death threats on social media.

Thoughts?

Love,

Yer kid Drew

TOOBE ENTRY

You can give yourself any name you want online.

Then you can set up “rooms”: little virtual places where people chat about whatever.

Or you can go into some room called Love of Christ with the screen name of SatanDear, and then you might have a little trouble.

That’s why it’s fun to come back five minutes later as ChristOnACrutch or something… .

Anyway, one time Scratch chose a name that had “bere” in it cuz it’s Irish, but people took it as a misspelled “bear.” So in the pagan room they thought it meant that Scratch’s totem was a bear.

In the Love My Beastie room, they thought that Scratch was being a teddy bear.

In the gay room, the men thought it meant ze was a gay, hairy guy.

Winc sez I have no blinders on, like they left them off at the baby factory.

Scratch sez I have no idea what’s taboo or not, and I’m mostly just curious, curious, curious.

I don’t know what Scratch looks like in the real world, I only know hir online.

I used to care what sex ze is, but now I talk to hir without thinking about that.

Scratch can get into these loops where it’s hard to get hir out. Ze starts spiraling down some helix that I can’t follow all the time. But one loop was pretty cool:

To: Toobe

From: Scratch

Subj: Online

I just got off the phone with my brother and he doesn’t get why people spend so much money to talk to strangers or have more email than they can handle. Stumped me for a minute, but then I got a theory. Ready for another one, ol’ pal?

It used to be you could talk to people on the street.

You could chat about the weather or the news and then you’d go your separate ways.

But you might have to worry that they’re psycho or they’re gonna ask you for something, or that they’ll think *you’re* weird.

So we’ve shut ourselves down. We size somebody up in a second and we cross the street, either literally or figuratively.

We judge people by how they look, of course, but it’s a complex assessment—in a flash!

—based on so many little things that it takes up too large a portion of your brain.

The thing is, people still want to connect. You know when people do good deeds spontaneously, like keeping a whale alive when it’s washed ashore or helping somebody out during a fire or something? They all feel so fucking good, and they can’t quite explain it.

So in cyberspace, they’re talking to people again!

They don’t have to worry that somebody’s gonna pull a gun if they say the wrong thing.

And even if someone *is* acting like a shithead, nobody has to “see” each other again.

And for women! Whoa! Suddenly they can tell assholes to fuck off without getting killed, or be really sexy in a way they would never be normally and just enjoy it in safety.

Which leads me to another theory, which is why so many men pose as women online.

It’s like cyber-crossdressing. They give up the male role for a while, for the sheer relief of giving it up.

Or pretend they’re lesbians. What cracks me up is that they’re probably doing it with other guys pretending to be women too!

I got off the track. But do you know what I mean?

—S.

Before I met Scratch online, I wouldn’t have been thinking about this kind of stuff. But now, yeah, I know what ze means.

Here’s more about the word hir : I found out in English class that the English language used to have gender assigned to nouns, just like German and most other romance languages have.

We still have some of that leftover, like ships are “she,” and Mother Nature is “she,” and of course, everything else is “he.” And in Chaucer, there’s the word hir .

That’s how they used to say the possessive when they didn’t know the gender of the noun, or it was a neutral noun.

Way back then! So it would be “The person sat down at hir computer and began to type.” (It was pronounced “here” sort of, with an English accent so who really knows.

Ancient English is as dead as ancient Greek.) That’s why STOOBE

AWESOME: You a guy or a girl?

Scratch: Does it matter?

AWESOME: I’m pretty loose about most things, but I don’t fuck dudes.

Scratch: Ah, that’s a shame, hon. You’d probably enjoy it if you loosened up. That’s OK, I’m not anything tonight.

AWESOME: I take it you enjoy watching guys together. No, I don’t think I would enjoy it, and yes, I am pretty loose.

Scratch: I enjoy lots of things, like guys who can be receptive, as it were. :)

That little :) symbol is a smile (turn it on its side and you’ll see). I don’t use them, way too cute for me. Scratch doesn’t usually, either, but I guess ze was “in character.”

AWESOME: I can be very receptive to certain things. But I enjoy it more when I do the giving.

Scratch: Ain’t that sweet. And rare…

AWESOME: So do you just naturally have a fucked-up attitude, or is this your way of weeding out certain people?

Scratch: What the fuck do you know about my attitude, dude. ::firing up weedwhacker::

AWESOME: Somehow I get the impression you’re a guy. If that is the case, bring the weedwhacker over here and I will demonstrate on you how it is used properly… ha ha. Your attitude is all fucked up. LOL.

Scratch: I don’t give a fucking shit in hell what gender I am… I try to leave it in the car with the windows rolled up as much as possible.

I like when Scratch and Winc send me stuff. It makes me more brave.

END TOOBE ENTRY

To: Editor, They/Them magazine

From: D.I. Drew

Subject: Scratch and Winc’s first chat

Hi Asa,

From everything I’ve been able to put together, the following is a true narrative of the first time Scratch and Winc hooked up online. Look at this dance and how it gets so steamy fast. Love it!

Then I found a gold mine: an entry from Scratch hirself about the first time ze met Winc. It was a themed chat room that was monitored so you could kick out trolls. Sigh. So nice to have.

Not only was that the first time Scratch and Winc met, it shows how long the two of them could keep a conversation going (if a “conversation” can include sex—and why not, right?).

Does a long convo even happen these days?

Where? Seriously, I’d like to know. Maybe we can ask people to let us know in the comments of an online version.

Cheers,

Drew

PS: There’s a lot of great sex in this. Not sure if They/Them can publish it all. You’ll let me know, right?

NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT

There’s a “pub” in the virtual world, which, despite the unlimited possibilities of description, the “patrons” have chosen to create as a slightly tacky lounge for more than tacky people to frequent.

It’s all there—the polyester, the smoky haze, the blender drinks, and the elevator music.

At any given time, day or night, this bar can be full of people, with a wide range of handles reflecting their status—usually heterosexual, married, and restless.

They come because there are others like them; this is their first tentative step onto the worldwide connection to the Net.

It is here that Scratch has found hirself, bored out of hir mind but unable to sleep.

Ze has signed on as Scratch, without a gender, waiting to see if someone else will fill in that blank.

As ze fends off the third of a series of polyester advances, ze realizes wryly that ze must be giving off the scent of someone female, and muses on the invisible cues cyberspace somehow allows.

Pissed off but curious, ze decides to give them what they want, but takes time crafting hir profile.

Ze can see out hir window: riot grrls with backward baseball caps, combat boots, and skirts.

They’re scary, angry, frenetic, and beautiful.

Funny how even in this androgynous new generation, there is still a gender uniform for girls and boys.

“Okay,” ze says to hirself. “You want girl, I’ll be girl.”