Freeday 21 January 2000

Pic of the day: "There are some things that are not easily conveyed over a distance..."
Screenshot from MS Chat (Comic Chat), a graphical Internet Relay Chat program.

Today I took a walk in the lunch break. My stomach has felt more or less like half full of sand all today, so I have eaten very little. This is actually good, as I am already fat enough for my lifestyle. Plus food costs money, which I can now instead use on phone bills. Ahem. I passed by a toy store when something caught the corner of my eye. A sign saying ... TELEHUBBIES ???

I don't have a TV, but I still knew this wasn't right. Sure, it turned out to be some disgusting deformed toddler dolls called Teletubbies. Be that as it may, I was already starting to think strange thoughts in my head, and they continued for a while.

We already have "telecommuters". Like commuters, only they don't actually show up on their workplace. So telehubbies would be like hubbies ("a diminuative of husband" according to my dictionary) only they don't actually show up. Now, by my reckoning that would interfere heavily with their, ah, hubbily duties. But I guess not all people take that too seriously.

Certainly the Internet seems to have added a new wave of distance relationships. Men and women (those two especially) find each other on chat rooms, IRC, ICQ, IM and whatever. Some prefer the slower, more thoughtful pace of e-mail, Usenet groups ("newsgroups") or BBS. I hear from people who have actually been there that some of these connections quickly proceeds from e-flirting to e-dating ... and tend to hover at that level for a longish time.

But sooner or later, it seems, the flesh makes it demands, and the e-lovers meet in person. Sometimes things just click into place. Most of the time, though, the eager twosome discover why the other person was available in the first place. There are some things that are not easily conveyed over a distance. Smell, for instance. Ahem. Anyway, it's not always a sunshine story. So perhaps a telehubby had been preferable, after all...

Of course, we have other telehobbies too. There are online role playing games where you can play a telehobbit or some such ... most of these are still text based and they do have some traits in common with chat rooms. But while role playing in chat rooms is frowned upon, it is fine on MUDs. (Multi User Dungeons, and that's dungeon as in Dungeons & Dragons, not as in the haunts of certain deviants. Ahem, again.) This means that MUDs are not ideal locations for flirting, as you cannot know the sex, age or inclination of the player behind the character. It doesn't stop some people from trying, though. :)

Telehabits can be hard to shake. Some people get really bitten, and spend most of their day online. If office workers, they may also spend most of their workday in chatrooms and such. This will sooner or later backfire, unless you have a really obscure job in a really large company. Others call in sick or simply don't show up. They lose their job. They lose their friends. They lose their family. They lose their minds. Internet addiction is now recognized as a serious mental health problems, and there are several support groups... on the Internet.

My own history is somewhat less dramatic, though I did play away around $1000 one summer in phone bills for Internet access. (We Norwegians have to pay for local calls, ca $1 per hour, though recently there has come competition that go for under half price after midnight.) I am a bit more cautious these days, though I will often hang out an hour or two around midnight to talk with some of my fellow journallers on IRC. And yes, I do particularly like some of the women. But I don't think I shall ever have a career as a telehubby!