Life before the Internet...

In this day and age I have little patience for those who cannot work a computer, don't understand what google is or how it works and take twenty minutes (over the phone) asking questions about how to log into a facebook account. (Incase you're wondering, I'm referring to my mother!)

So it got me thinking and reminising about life before the internet......back in the day (How old does that statement make me sound!), around the age of 14 or 15 when I started seeing....ahem...boys! Standard protocal said that if you were interested in each other then you would exchange home phone numbers and this in turn usually meant organising a time for you to be home in order to receive the call.

I have a strong memory of being in a local disco ( The Glen in Dundalk!!...ah memories!) where a boy wanted my phone number for his friend. (Oh asking a girl out for your friend.....that was standard too!) He asked me as we were leaving to get our taxi, so in a rush I kept shouting the number so he could remember it for his friend and even suggested he got a pen and paper! It worked out......his friend called, we met up and we were stuck together for about a year!

In my house, I was lucky in that we had a couple of phones around the house so I could take calls upstairs without having to whisper in the hallway so my parents didn't hear me! However if you called someone and they were not at home....well then they weren't home.......leave a message or try again later! No chance to send an email, a text, post a Facebook message.....nada!

1997 is the year I can remember being interested and fascinated by the idea of the internet! The fact that you could 'go online' and connect with anyone in the world really excited me and when a friend of a boyfriend got a computer and a dial up internet connection I would insist that we would hang out there so that we could 'surf the net'. I even got excited by the sound of the dial up connection......yup I was THAT sad!

An internet shop......not a cafe but a small shop with about 10 computers where you could pay to use the internet popped up in my home town and I would spend hours in there. Looking back I'm not even sure what sites I was browsing but needless to say I was amused by it all! A friend then got a computer that Christmas and I was so jealous, it wasn't funny! I nagged my parents to get me a computer but at the time, they didn't understand what the  fuss was about or the importance of being connected to the world!

These days I'm still as obsessed with the internet as I was in those early days! I love how you can find everything and anything that you need within a click, can connect to a whole world of interesting people (which I have done via all things Etsy) and how the word google has become a verb and part of everyday vocab!...Just 'google' it! This sentenance irrates my mother to her core...."What's google?" she asks....I've tried explaining it to her in the most simple of terms but I'm getting no where! :)

Still though......I don't know what I did before the internet.