The Ninja

It was late October of 1999. I was a sophomore in high school then. Earlier that summer, I had uninstalled a video game program from our family computer, which caused it to crash and cease to start up. After a fix, my mother finally decided to sign up for internet service through, what else, America Online (AOL). Back then it was supposedly “so easy to use” that it was “no wonder it’s number one.” Anyway, the internet soon became an addiction for me, having been only fifteen with the world at my fingertips.

After just a few weeks, I already had a routine. I would log on, wait for the voice to say “Welcome,” and immediately look for any Filipino-based chat rooms under the Japan directory. (As you may have guessed now, I am Filipino.) From what I hear nowadays, the Filipino-based chats are now housed under the Argentina directory.

Just one day before Halloween that year, I logged onto a chat just like I had always done. With my homework finished and dinner in my stomach, I was ready to socialize with perfect strangers from all over the United States. Also like always, once I entered the chat room, I would introduce myself with a few left-angled brackets followed by my “a/s/l,” or age, “sex,” and location.

<<<15/m/ca

Then out of habit, I would then ask the other members of the chat to do the same.

ASL?

They would respond accordingly and resume their chatter. Questions would be asked, users would answer, and occasionally, certain people would strike private chats on their own through the Instant Messenger service built into AOL.

It was my lucky night because some one wanted to strike a private conversation with me. I still remember her screen name back then. It resonated with something distinctly Filipino, and it was even formatted with alternating upper case and lower case letters. From what I recall, her initial greeting was, “Can I keep you company?” At least it was something of that sort. What I did not know was that this phrase would come back later with a different context.

We soon got into a typical conversation, and once we had found out that we lived just minutes from each other, on opposing borders of the same city, our conversation got even more personal. The next step was to share pictures. I did not have a digital camera back then, but who really did? Nor did I have many pictures of myself in great abundance. I had stopped taking pictures of myself (more like stopped letting people take pictures of me) for quite some time since I arrived in the United States—I never liked how I looked in those pictures that were taken.

I explained to her my situation with not having a picture readily available, then shyly asked if she had one of herself. I asked shyly because I did not want to seem so shallow, and at the same time, I did not want to ask for anything from anyone that I could not provide myself. She obliged the request, however, and soon transferred her picture. It was a typical studio-shot picture of herself and two of her cousins. She asked if I could guess who she was. Although the three girls in the picture had a resemblance, it was quite easy for me to guess. She had a distinct face, different from her two cousins.

As was my nature back then, I complimented her on how pretty she looked. I figured that I had nothing to lose on the internet, especially since I am essentially an unknown just like everyone else. Social encounters on the internet did not carry the burden of keeping appearances like they do in “real life.”

We talked for a little while longer and soon reached the topic of trick-or-treating for Halloween. She asked me if I was going to dress up as anything. I replied that I was not. Then I shot the question back at her. She replied that she was going to go as a ninja, then head out at night with her friends from school. I thought to myself, “that’s nice.”

Soon she had to go. It was a little late for young people like us and there were things to do the next day, like church in the morning. We parted ways, but not before adding each other to our “buddy lists.” I resolved to make contact with her again one day because it seemed as if we had a real connection. Maybe I was just a little hopeful then, but I think that has stayed the same until now, also. I logged out of AOL and waited for the recorded voice to say, “Goodbye.”

I once again was feeling quite happy. Of all the people that I had met online within that first couple of months, she was the first to be within reach—the closest one so far. Who knew, maybe there were only two or three degrees of separation between us instead of the theoretical six. However many degrees of separation there were outside of the internet, all I knew was that by the end of the night, those degrees of separation had dwindled down to only one.