International dating

Chat rooms are the traditional means of meeting people on the
Internet. So traditional that they were around way before the World
Wide Web took hold.

Before the WWW and the Internet as we know it today (pre
1990s), there were Bulletin Board Systems, or more commonly
referred to as BBSs. Mostly computer hobbyists ran these from their
back room. They had anywhere from two phone lines to hundreds,
and you could dial in and use crude chat software to enable you to
talk to the other people on the same system. There were no such
things as mice, graphical user interfaces, photos, scanners, email
addresses, etc. This was the realm of text-based green screen
monitors, 20MB hard drives, and 300bps modems you had to dial
yourself. Women online back then were as rare as hens’ teeth, and
they were literally swamped by messages from every male online at
the time. It was quite rare to meet anyone but fellow male computer
nerds this way. Online dating back then was almost unheard of, the
Male/Female ratio was just too small, so it wasn’t really thought of
nor attempted (except possibly by yours truly!). Overall, it was
hardly a place for anyone but your stereotypical teenage male
computer geek or electronics hobbyist.

Then came widespread public use of the Internet and chat
programs like IRC, the newer web based chat sites, and finally
instant messaging services like ICQ.

By David L. Jone