early internet days

wow so i saw avatar last night, and was quite impressed, the effects were amazing, storyline was passable. i see sequels coming!

so i want to write about when i first got the internet, because it was my first contact with the gay world. before i got the internet, i felt so so alone, i had never even spoken to a single person about my feelings. I got the internet in 1996, when it was still quite new, but growing rapidly. so i was 15. i had no idea how to use a computer , let alone the internet, but i taught myself quite quickly. at first i dont think the idea of gay chatrooms or even gay porn had even crossed my mind. google did not exist. there were search engines though, and i remember one day a few months after i got the net i searched the word gay, and so much came up. i felt so guilty and so dirty that i quickly shut the browser. i had no idea that internet explorer kept a history of what you looked at, thankfully though i worked this out before someone else used my computer!
so i reckon i searched the words "gay" or "fag" and immediately closed the window at least 10 times over a period of several months before i finally got the guts to look at some webpages, and eventually i found my way onto a gay chatroom. this was my first gay expereince so to speak. i quickly learnt that it was basically full of guys wanting to meet for sex. there was no way i was gunna do that. i was like, 16 years old, scared shitless, embarressed, self loathing, but couldnt stop logging on. i did eventually chat to some nice people though, who were also interested just in chatting, and not meeting up , and also managed to start chatting to some people in a similar situation to myself. i guess this made me feel a little less alone in the world. of course, i told them all i was bisexual, because this is what i had been convincing myself i was anyway. looking back of course i know that was a lie. so i made some net friends, some even from my local area. but i was too scared to ever meet any of them. some of them wanted to, not for sex but just to meet. i ust couldnt do it. it would make it so real. and then i got busted! when i was about 17 i decided to call one of them for the first time. he lived in my area. i had always used a fake name, but immeditely slipped up on the phone and gave him my real name. and then one day when we were chatting , he worked out exactly who i was, because it turned out he knew my mother!!!!
i had a panic attack at my computer. i hyperventilated. i felt sick. i wanted to kill myself. he had no idea what it was like for me at the other end of the computer. he swore he would never tell .
after this he really wanted to meet up, but i was still too scared. eventually he got sick of this, and we stopped chatting. i dont think he ever told anyone, well i hope not, cause its been 10 years now since this happened.
so by the time i was 19, and finsihed school, and ready to leave home for uni, the internet was still my only outlet for my gay life. i had still never met up with anyone, i was still a gay virgin. i decided to stop using the internet for gay things the minute i left home to move away for uni. perhaps i thought new life, new start. who knew what would happen next? i did not use the internet for gay purposes again for about 9 months, i think i started using it again in Sept 2001, i was 20 by then. my second phase of gay internet was very different, and ill talk about that another time.