If you want to be an angel, Surf on the net, For it’s heaven. If you want to be a devil, Surf on the net, For it’s hell.******************************************************************************I am introversion and shy male. Am I born to be so? Who knows? My early childhood is not so clear in my mind. But some recollections of the past keep appearing in my mind. “I was fighting against big boys to help the weak.” “So many children of the same age were following me” “I was performing in front of the whole school. I was dancing Yangko across the whole city.” Was that me? Were those my real stories? Or were they just fairy tales invented by me to cheat myself? It is not so important for me now. I used to be one of the top students in primary schools and junior middle schools. But things changed a lot when I entered a key senior middle school. There were altogether 40 students in the class and I was the 36th. Though all my relatives, my old classmates, my friends congratulated me for entering such a good school. I felt constrained. I became a boy of few words. I went to school and came home alone every day. I have few words even with my desk mate. I sit on my seat for the whole morning and the whole afternoon. Others would cheer for the break, but that was the hardest time for me. I didn’t know what I should do. I never left my seat. The only thing I did was standing up for a few seconds and then soon sits down. For half a term, I even didn’t know what the toilet was like in our school. I was even not willing to talk much with my parents whenI was backing home. At long came the mid-term examination. I did quite well in it. My total mark was the seventh in class. And in the final-term examination, I was fourth in class. But things changed little. I had only a few more words with the classmates around me. And I went to the toilet at times. Besides the score, those well all the changes took place on me. What a hell!! Then I finished my college life and started to work. But I was still a man of few words and few friends. All the leaders and collogues thought I was an honest, hard-working man with little thought and poor in speaking. I dare not speak in public and my face easily went red. After working for four years, through a match-maker, I knew a girl, who is now my wife. She is a typical traditional good Chinese wife. One and a half years later, we had a son. But I was still that kind of a man. Five years ago, our company bought the first PC. It was equipped with an ISDN set so that it can be connected with the internet. And I was thought to be the “safest” guy to take care of it. The engineer from the telecommunication bureau taught me how to be on the net. For the first time, I got in touch with the internet. At that time, the internet can do little to help with the work in our company. And I don’t have much to do on the net. So one day, I entered a local chatting room The successive words reminded me the classroom of the senior middle school. They were happy, they were sad, they were smiling, they were laughing, they were singing. But no one cares the existence of me. What have all those to do with me? I was just about to leave when suddenly a name appeared in my eyes, “Waiting for you to love me”, which was then a very popular song, and one of my favorite. With my hand trembling, I clicked her name and typed “Hello.” I was almost breathless after I pushed the enter button. But no reply. Silent. Deadly silent. I didn’t know how long had passed before I saw her reply. Only one single word “Hi.”with a “:)” sign.sign. I couldn’t describe how excited I was , but I still have the same kind of excitement when I recall that now. I didn’t know what else I could say and I could do. About half a minute later, a sentence from her appeared to me, “Why do you choose to talk with me?”, again with a :)sign. The smiling face stroke me like a harmer and woke me up in a sudden. With my face hot and red, we started our conversation. I typed slowly at that time. But the girl was patient enough to wait. And she put a ":)" sign behind each sentence. I tried to put one behind mine as she did. We talked about the song and the singer. I didn't find that I was really smiling until I looked at the time and found nearly two hours had past. It seemed that she was aware of the time at the same time.Because she said suddenly,"I must go home now." And then she told me she was a student in a normal university and was then enjoying the summer vocation. She lived in a small town about 40 kilometers from our city. "I seldom come to chatting rooms.":) She said. At seeing this sentence, I felt as if my heart was taken away. It was empty in my chest. And for the first time, the ":)" sign made me so sad. "So we can hardly meet again,right?:(" "1********, this is my qq number. :) I always turn it on when I am on line. And you can add me. :)" Then she taught me how to download a qq and apply for a qq number. From then on, we often meet on the qq. And I found she was a vivacious, cheerful sunny girl, and a bit naughty. She was my first net pal, and my first female friend as well. How time flied! Nearly two months has passed and we became very good friends. She would go back to school. Luckily, we were often at work on Saturday morning, so that we can still meet on net. To some certain degree, she brought me fresh air and changed me a little. My wife was an introversion independent mature woman, who never asked me for any suggestions. While that girl brought back my confidence and made me feel myself a big brother. Something from my inner body broke out. Once she told me that she thought I was a thoughtful and humorous man. No one had addressed me like that before. I was so surprised at her words at first. That was quite different what I was like in the real life. But then I found I did be such kind of a man when I was talking with her. And I had changed a little in the real life. I spoke out what I thought and joked with collegues at times. While I had never done that before. We exchanged telephone numbers, but till now, we've never called each other. Her home is not so far from our city, and she went past our city when she went back home from school. But we never meet face to face. Half a year later, she introduced a website which was called the Nine City to me. She told me people there could get married on the net. So I joked with her,"Will you marry me on the net." "OK. But we must be on the website long enough and enough money and some other conditions." From then on, we tried our best to do all the things on the website so that we can get married. And we chatted in intimate words from time to time. That was the biggest mistake I'd made. What was worse, that special kind of feeling kept increasing between us without awareness.Though it was only a joke, though I had my family and she had her boyfriend, though we never tried to make extra chances to meet on the net. We would miss each other every day. Yet we had a good control of ourselves. Another half a year passed, and her parents bought her a mobile phone. I used a SIM card of Telecom while she used a Unicom one. At that time, we couldn't send short messages to each other. We made a pact that we could call each other when we were missing each other, but neither of us should answer it. Both of us stored each other's number with the name of "Miss You". Once or twice each day, we would get greetings of that kind from each other. I naively thought we would e able to be like this all our lives. On the day that we had got to know each other for exactly two years. She said on the QQ to me,"I want to see you face to face. I want to devote all myself to you." I was shocked by her words, but I explained to her it was impossible and unreasonable. But I knew how brave she should be to say like that and how sad I was to try to persuade her and myself. I woke up from the dream suddenly.It destined to be a tragedy from the beginning. With my heart bleeding, I decided it should come to an end. From the next day on, I kept myself away from the qq and never went to the Nine City any more. But my cell phone kept ringing twice at least a day for around two months. Every time, I cried in my heart on hearing the ring and seeing her name on the screen of my cell phone. But I never called her any more. I was sure I would lose myself if I gave up. Without her, I rehabitated myself a quiet and silent man in the reality. (One year later, on the spring Festival, I sent her a short message and she replied. Now she has been worked as a maths teacher for nearly two years. We would sent short messages of simple greeting once or twice a month. I think our relationship must be the purest friendship now.) I had been "a silent lamb" for another two years until one year ago, I got a PC of my own in the office. For I didn't communicate with the colleagues very much,I have much time to sit in front of it. I dare not turn on the qq any longer. I didn't do more than reading news on the internet until one day I went to a BBS. That's a forum about the feeling. There I read many good post. I found a BBs had a completely different atmosphere with a chatting room. They are almost all true feelings. It is more like a big family. I began to love it almost at the first sight. I went to the BBS almost every day ever since. to enjoy the melodies. I only read at first. By and by, I couldn't help making replies to some of the post to give my suggestions to them. I made several friends there. Suggested and encouraged by them, I tried to write some root posts two months later, mainly about the life, love, work and so on. As a thoughtful mature man, most of my posts sounded reasonable. So they were warmly welcomed, especially young girls. Soon I enjoyed high reputation on the forum. So many boys and girls were influenced by me. Many of those suffered in the disappointment in a love affair became much better after they read my post. I was flattered so much that I felt myself great. I didn't remember when and from whom I got the first photo of my netfriend and I was persuaded to use the qq again. From then on, I exchanged photos with some net friends. I even saw some net friends through the video tool of qq and msn. I knew what my net friends look like. So I was a little confused whether I was making friends on the nets or in the real life. But I'm sure all these had a great influence on me and helped me quite a lot. When I looked at the photos or video displays while chatting, I felt as if I was talking with friends face to face. By and by, I dare to speak in public, and even with strangers. Thoughtful or humorous words often came out of my mouth. I communicated much more with the colleagues. My face didn't go red so easily as usual. The most important thing is that my potential ability called the attention of the leaders and I was made a leading cadre of a department. Though I knew none of those friends would seen and read this post. I should sincerely say "Thank you" to them. I have no better way to express how thankful I am. With the lesson drawn from my former mistake, I was so careful when I was communicating with the young girls. We were just like brothers and sisters, and some of them did call me brother. "I like you" often appeared during the conversation. But that's just a kind of like. With my wife and my son in my heart, I was clever enough not to make the same mistake again. The internet seemed to be a paradise for me. I needn't worry too much. It made me more brave and improved me a lot even in the reality. We were true to each other and all of us treasured the friendship. But the paradise crashed down again. One morning, when I turned on my qq, I found one of my net friends was online. She was one of my best friends, at least I thought so. I have helped her with the PC problems and we talked a lot. She used to call my brother and we have seen each other through the video tool of the qq before. Since I found she got a video camera, I clicked the button to ask the the permission to see her. To my surprise, it seemed that this made her quite angry. "I have let you see me once. You should be content. You are taking a candy from a baby.Why I should let you see again. What do you mean to do?" I was rendered speechless at her words.What's going wrong? Did I offend her? I was really confused. Though it seemed that I didn't do anything wrong, a sense of guilty rose from my heart. Maybe my heart is too fragile. No, not maybe, my heart does be fragile. Am I a devil? Which is the true me, on the net or in the real life? Isn't there real friendship between opposite sex? Who am I? Must I keep silent all my life?
I don't know who I can confide to. I don't want to write it in Chinese in that forum. Luckily I found this forum of pure English. So the idea came to me that I can write it in English. I made my greatest efford to make it an English one. Maybe no one would be interested in this long dull post. Maybe every one will think I am crazy. Maybe I am a devil in your mind. I don't care. I just want to speak out.
