In the last issue of the Outpost Tribune, I began a series that I hoped would bring the members some insight on the different aspects of life within the community. My goal was to bring together different people to discuss a subject that has just now started to become less of a taboo upon society. With the help of volunteers to offer insight and their own anecdotes, these articles were meant to be a primer for delving into the deeper meaning of what it is to fall in love in an unforgiving medium such as this.

Since I began regularly visiting Ten Forward in November of 1999, I have had the chance to witness many beautiful friendships come and go. I have also borne witness to a lost institution, cyber marriage. Back a couple of years ago, cyber marriages meant something. When two people who had been friends decided to get hitched, it was almost always because they knew it made sense to become something more in the chat room. I can distinctly remember watching several of these services take place between many of my friends. It was always a special experience, especially when it would lead to something more. Some marriages were a step towards real-life meetings, and some marriages were a step in the progression of their friendship.

I was relieved when cyber marriages finally died out in the Outpost. The days of honorable marriage among friends who, goodness knows, were as close as family, had long since drawn to a close. Rabid newbies, running to find a cyber-family so they could fit in, had ruined a once noble institution and made it into a mockery of what real relationships were meant to be. In a sense, an age of innocence in the Outpost was ended, and as a result of that, we all moved into a more private existence when it came to the ones we love. It's been long enough that now I think we, as a community, are ready to once more talk about this serious subject and give it the merit that it should be given.

In my last article, I wrote, "What is it to love online? What rules are there? What boundaries are there that don't exist in real life that we have to contend with on the Internet? Probably the most important question is: Do we really know who it is we are falling in love with, or if they'll really be there when the time comes to bring it out to the real world;" and I did not elaborate on it. So, I'll start with "What rules are there?"

There are no rules for Internet dating. If you're lucky, you'll find a friend online who over time will grow into something more. It takes a lot of time, in my experience, for these things to happen. There is no "love at first pressing receive" law. After all, what can we tell from an avatar? For me, it has taken most of my Internet life to find just one girl that I can talk to freely and without fear. However you go about doing it, I don't think that there is any place better suited to nourishing a budding relationship than Outpost 10F.

In some ways, though, the Internet can be the truest way to know someone. How often is it that you go up to a perfect stranger in real life and spill all of your troubles out on them? I certainly know that I never have walked up to Bob the meter-maid and said, "You know, Bob, I have no friends, no life, and the girl I love doesn't love me back. Can you please help me?" That would be awkward, right? But on the Internet, and especially at the Outpost, we can all talk to each other with a relative sense of ease. I've been frightened before because I've chatted with someone in Ten Forward for an hour, then found myself adding them to my ICQ list to talk about all matters of life, death, and love with them. We can open up to people online sometimes better than we can open up to our own families, and this is why love has been able to flourish online. I am a shy and reserved fellow in real life, yet on the Internet I've been able to act out on many of the fantasies that I never would've been able to do otherwise.

It's alright to fall in love online, not that we don't have a choice sometimes. Nothing is ever for certain in real life, and it becomes even more uncertain when you're going through uncharted territory online. None of us truly know what we're getting ourselves into when we wake up in the morning; none of us knows what the day might bring. If you fall in love today, then hopefully you'll look forward to what tomorrow will bring.

I know that this month I did not have a featured interview, but as of the date in which I was required to submit my article, the three couples that I sent out requests for interviews have yet to respond. Pesky buggers! Next month, stay tuned, as I will pick out another topic with which to discuss. Until then, good luck, good hunting, and goodbye!