Does Anyone remember the days of AOL, Ims, and the AOL Member Directory (email, online)

[MichaelOrear]

Hello,

Right now I am telecommuting from home (glad to have a job during this pandemic), rarely go out since I am high risk, but would love to meet some new people. Back in the late nineties and early 2000s when I was a youngster, I would meet people online via:

1. Going to the Member Directory and finding a person with a common interest who happened to be online, whose profile appealed to me, and starting a chat via IM. Often I would start a chat with a person that got to be ultra-deep and ended up turning into an intense 1 hour conversation. A few became medium term or long term friends.

2. Meeting people in chat rooms.

3. Every now and then cold emailing a person who had an interesting website ( Remember personal websites

I met some great long term friends this way.

A few questions:

A. Does anyone here remember the days of AOL, IMs, Member Directories, and chat rooms? If so, do you have any happy memories of these times?

B. If you used these services, when did you stop using them?

C. Do you think there is anything like these services today or places on the Internet to meet people?

D. Do you think there will ever be any ways to easily meet people online spontaneously based on common interests (like in the days of You've Got Mail) again? Most online venues for meeting people are almost always just about immediate romance and sex.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

[elnina]

Is that a school assignment, again?
Yes, I remember all that. Been with the computer from the very beginning.
As the computer/Internet evolved old things became obsolete and people moved on.