Dear Andrea,
I no longer know how – basically, it doesn't really matter – I discovered your column but I'm glad it happened.  The topic we can read about there is probably affecting many people, but in the near future it will be happening on a mass scale.  I'm not using the word mass figuratively.

I'm affected to an extent on the subject.  I need to mention in the beginning that I'm not part of the younger generation and that makes this even more thought provoking.  Why do I feel as though I need to contribute my thoughts to the collection?  Simply, because during the past few days I've spent a lot of time trying to think what could have happened to me.  First the plain facts.  I was doing research on the net for my work (of course, that's what everybody would say), when by accident I came upon the TTC Chat.  There is no explanation why, but I logged in.  Even choosing a nick was as simple as if I were an old pro.  It appears that perhaps it worked too well.  I thought I was seeing things, within minutes I found myself 4-5 chat partners.  Naturally, they were all students.  I must admit I've thoroughly enjoyed my abrupt popularity as it came to me unexpectedly.  One of the usual questions of ‘how old are you’ I naturally put 52.  When I see it written down it stuns even myself because I don't feel that old, but facts are stubborn things.  It turned out that exactly the opposite happened from what I had expected.  The majority of the girls asked me for a date and then something that even today I can't find an explanation for.  I've exchanged e-mail addresses with one of the girls and we actually met.  Naturally my wife didn't know about this.

Since I was facing something unexplainable I thought a great deal about the situation of meeting people on the internet.  What is it that makes the chat so exciting, so magical?  We can meet people on the street, at clubs and several other opportunities.  As a common denominator of all of these is the fact that we base these meetings on exterior, on how we look.  Contrary to this on the net, at least in the beginning, the exterior may be ignored although this also must bring some element of excitement.  By the time things reach the meeting stage the interior has projected through the letters and shifts the point of view.  It is this chance that is not given in a real situation versus a virtual one.

All young men and women have an ideal that they would like to conquer, but in most cases this does not happen.  Unfortunately, ideals are few and far between.  Most people are not as attractive as the models smiling from the pages of magazines or the stars of TV soaps.  If we look back in history, we'll find that this existed for most of humanity.

From the masculine perspective the scheme is simple: power and money attract women and men somehow want to conquer what appears to be their ideal in beauty.  Even people who have physical flaws do not dream about a mate with similar problems.  I'm merely guessing here although there are examples to back me up in world literature: Cirano, Quasimodo to mention the most famous.  Finally, with little exception, everyone meets his/her match.  The system must be working because the race had not died out.  Looking at the divorce statistics we see that it is not working perfectly, but perhaps many marriages would never have taken place had the emotional differences surfaced earlier on in the relationship.  You could cite here that even longer marriages end in divorce.  There must be other reasons for these break ups, but those that lasted for short years or merely months are marriages that would never have made it in this fashion.  In my opinion this is what the net has a perspective in.

The fantastic thing about the net is that the complex we develop about our exterior does not inhibit the spirit from developing.  This conviction is strengthened in me when I read the articles that have appeared in this column.  In the worst case scenario when the physical appearance is completely different from the imagination, you've still made a friend.  That is no small feat these days.  It is probably not important for you to know the continuation of my story, I’ll just say that I think it is perhaps time for me to read Faust once more.

Finally, I'm repeating myself by saying that I'm glad to have found your column.  I’ll admit that my favorite of the stories was the “Lilly Among the Thorns”, there was an aura of a very special person emanating from it.  I'm richer now for having read it.

Wish you continued success in the future.
Andras