THANAR LEK.
This was perhaps the first person I met in my weblife around 2003. Back then, I was a kid, doodling away my time by adding made up names in my contact list in msn messenger (back when it was the thing to have). This is how I stumbled across Thanar Lek. I cannot remember if this was his username, email address, name or something else. But it’s the name I associate him with when I think about him (which I haven’t, not since a few years).
Lek was in his late twenties, a computer technician working in Taipei. He wasn’t Taiwanese though, or Chinese for that matter. He was Thai. This was and incredible coincidence because at the time, I myself was living in Bangkok. That gave us a headstart and lots of things to talk about, particularly, as I found out later, his home was in Bangkok.
With Lek I remember having in-depth Harry Potter discussions – we both loved Book Four – and chats about Thai food, places in Thailand where we had traveled to (when I said I, it was of course with my parents, but I didn’t tell him that). In fact, I think it was Lek who told me about the shopping malls, and restaurants, where you could get the most authentic and cheapest deals, that I, as a foreign kid would have never known (but of course, my parents aversion to buying travel guides were also to blame), including the underground water tunnels at the end of the road of our house which served as a stop to “water busses”. I would tell my parents about these places later and when they turned out to be chic, I would feel smug, because it was through my “adult” acquaintance (I never told my parents, of course).
One thing in particular I remember about this display name was that it said “hihi”. I thought this was very cool. I later adopted it for a while when I deleted and blocked him as a contact.
Sadly, eventually we ran out to talk about. I won’t tell you my age but I was very young back then so what can you expect? But I had practiced my English with him back then and adopted many adult words because I wanted to sound mature (like any other kid). Back then, you had an unspoken obligation to message every contact on your list so later on, our talks became lame and awkward.
Eventually, I think he blocked me. I blocked him back in return.
Filed under: MSN, First time, NaBloPoMo09, People
People I Meet Online 