{"id":371,"date":"2005-05-02T12:36:37","date_gmt":"2005-05-02T10:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.tjerngren.net\/wp\/?p=371"},"modified":"2005-05-02T12:36:37","modified_gmt":"2005-05-02T10:36:37","slug":"another-american-girl-meets-swedish-boy-on-the-internet-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Another “American Girl Meets Swedish Boy on the Internet” story …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years ago today I sent the instant message that would change my life forever. I was relatively new to the internet and completely new to ICQ<\/a> and the like, and I had set a rather frenetic pace chatting with strangers far and wide. I also used the program to keep in touch with “real-life” friends, of course, but back in those days I was working the 3-11pm shift at the U.S. Postal Service and by the time I got home from work and logged on to ICQ, most everyone local to me was already in bed. It was only natural, then, that I would begin talking to Europeans, who were just starting their days as mine was winding down.<\/p>\n

In the wee hours of May 2, 2000 I sent a simple greeting — “good morning” — to someone in Stockholm who called himself Alhambra. (And yes, I still remember with a vague sense of annoyance that I accidentally left the “g” uncapitalized and hit “send” before I noticed it — what kind of way is that to make a good first impression?). He was in a chatty mood, just getting to work and sitting behind his desk with a breakfast sandwich, and we struck up a lively conversation that lasted until he left the office for lunch. By the time we signed off, I was hooked.<\/p>\n

And I still am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago today I sent the instant message that would change my life forever. I was relatively new to the internet and completely new to ICQ and the like, and I had set a rather frenetic pace chatting with strangers far and wide. I also used the program to keep in touch with “real-life”… Read More Another “American Girl Meets Swedish Boy on the Internet” story …<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}