12 Years On The Internet

by HijabMan :: posted 5 June 07

I was a pretty shy, insecure teen, which is obvious if you choose to read more of this site. And so when my brother installed Prodigy Dial-up internet service at my parents house, I was afraid to sit down at the computer. I was 13 at the time. He had opened up a teen-chat room and invited me to participate.

“What do I say?” I asked him.
“Anything you want.” He replied matter-of-factly.

So I sat, completely afraid of what those dozens or so people somewhere in North America thought of me, without even knowing I was there.

Wait a second, if they don’t know me, can’t see me, and can’t hear me, why the heck is this so hard?

“Hello.” I typed.

The reply turned out to be some kid pasting a collection of letters and characters that depicted a person holding up two middle fingers. A line below the ‘image’ read “Sit On ‘Em And Rotate.”

My brother rolled his eyes, and left me there to explore.

Over the next year, we tried all of the services available at the time, settling on MSN. There, I was a regular in a chatroom with mostly older folks, and it was there that I developed my chatting style and my typing speed. This was far better than any typing practice off-line!

At this point, all of my communications with ‘internet people’ stayed on the internet. That was, until I gave my address to a woman named Sara, who was a 25 year old woman. Turns out she was a 45 year old gay, Latino man who lived in Florida with three kids, or so the chat transcript that was being passed around read.

I freaked out. So much so that when I was in the backseat of my parents car, and saw a latino-looking man with long fingernails, a man next to him and three kids in the backseat, I ducked.

I never heard from ‘Sara’ again, and as time wore on, I was much less freaked out. Then, I joined AOL, and decided that I would only chat with Muslim women (with few exceptions) on-line. At the time (and to a large extent today) I assumed that no person in their right mind would pretend to be a Muslim woman.

From that point on, I regularly Instant Messaged every Muslim woman I found on AOL. I was out in suburbia, without any friends, and stuck in the house all day— I had nothing better to do. I would enter the Islam chatroom and send messages to every person present, that read things like “Assalamu alaikum! My name is HijabMan, and I just wanted to say I love you just for the sake of loving you.”

Yeah. I was a hippie back then too. The truly fascinating part about this process was that many people would open up to me, and tell me about their problems. As a non-threatening Muslim male who understood their cultural context but wasn’t part of their communities, I made a fairly good candidate for a buddy.

By the time I was 15, I was calling a good amount of the Muslim girls and women I met on-line—from ages 13 to 45. I spoke with them on the phone for hours, and I even let my mother talk to them every now and again. As someone who was having trouble with social interaction, I sort of gradually moved from a low form of communication, the internet, to the phone. Can you guess what came next?

At 15, I spoke to a woman on-line named SillyGoose, a married 21 year old Muslim who worked for a well-known phone company. As an employee of a phone company, she had an 800 number.

Ding! Free Calls!

We talked. She acted as my big sister, and my mentor in some ways. She even sent me a stylized number 5 on a card to remind me to pray 5 times a day.

I found out her husband was coming to town, and so I asked my parents if it was okay if he came to visit us. After a few hesitant questions, they agreed. He came over, we played basketball for a bit, and my parents made sure to keep us in-sight, suspicious of the scary internet people. SillyGoose’s sister and niece live nearby, and when my parents realized this, they extended the dinner invitation to them as well!

Over time SillyGoose and I lost touch, but at the ISNA convention last year, I met her for the first time without realizing it. After we did realize that we had met each other, we’ve been better about calling each other regularly. Over a decade has passed. Blows the mind, doesn’t it?

While I was chatting on the internet, my brother also introduced me to HTML, and I taught myself how to make my own web site. It was a simple site for a couple years, but as I learned more skills, and gained more expertise, it got bigger, and more advanced. As my on-line confidence grew, I spoke on all sorts of controversial issues. That led to some death threats, and me freaking out once again. But as time passed, nothing happened, and I wisened up to these empty on-line threats. The current design, by the way, was made by my friend Destry Wion.

People came, and people went, but I made friendships all over the world. For the most part those friendships stayed on-line, until my junior year of college, when I lived in Cairo as a part of a study abroad program. Some had heard about the HijabMan web site, and friends of people I had met in Cairo knew my on-line persona. A couple years later, I attended my first ISNA, people began recognizing me, and asking me if I was that kid who sent “I love you” messages to random folks on AOL.

Yes. That was me. And holy crap, now everyone knows, hahaha.
Those collisions of my on-line and in-person connections have grown to such enormous amounts that I no longer try to wrap my head around the idea that a woman in Malaysia reads my family’s blog, and how I’ve met folks in Cairo who know people that I’ve chatted with in Australia, and so on and so forth. I can’t possibly think about it, because my head would seriously implode.

All I know is that I love every single person I’ve connected with, on-line and off. AzamHussain mentioned the other day that if/when I get married, my wedding will be like the last episode of Seinfeld, where all of the characters from all of the chapters of my life will be in attendance.

My mind has officially imploded.

Will at 6 June 07 :: #

HM, you are truly an intriguing person. I have to say I marvel at the things you’ve done, people you’ve met, and experiences you’ve built and all by the tender age of 25! :)

I hope I get the chance to meet you in person one of these days and hang out.

I hope you never lose that hippie instinct.

Peace,

Will
katiktuni at 6 June 07 :: #

Meeting someone in person is a fairly high form of communication, but singing 80’s music to aunties over the phone tops it all. :)
HijabMan at 6 June 07 :: #

Will :)
Don’t worry, I’m definitely coming to the U.K. and I gots an idea. Tender? I’m over the hill, man! A crotchety old man. I already feel like starting each sentence with Hell, and ending it with Sh&t. Hell, kids these days, sh**************ttttttt.”

:) That was a plug for the Axis of Evil comedy tour, by the way :)
HijabMan at 6 June 07 :: #

Katik:

I’ll repost that sometime soon :)
The Imugi at 6 June 07 :: #

Wow, that really is a truly amazing set of experiences you’ve had, Hijabman! :)

Oh, btw, I really like what I’ve seen of the Axis of Evil comedy tour ^_
HijabMan at 6 June 07 :: #

Imugi…

Yeah you should go see it if you get the chance!

Hahaha and just wait till my book ;)
rawi at 6 June 07 :: #

this post just reminded me of that day over three years ago when i was sitting at the registration desk for CIR when our friend S.A. came over for my laptop so we could browse to hijabman.com. and we were like, omg, this guy is famous!

and now i realize that “oddly” enough, i’ve known you first offline and then online!

btw, re. that sara dude—seriously, what the hell?? i hope your address has changed since then! :-)
HijabMan at 6 June 07 :: #

Rawi: Oh Oh, related story: So in my senior year of college, I decided to get a ride down to New Haven, CT from some internet buddy I had never met before. She dropped me off near Yale, and I basically called some random guys mother to see if I could find some Muslims. Since I didn’t have paper or pen, I scratched the number I got from AzamHussain on a sidewalk near the Yale Library. From there, I got the number of Ameer, and I met him in the musalla @ yale. He introduced me to Yusuf S., who eventually met me when I landed in Syria, and I met Arafat, And Gul and and and a bunch of other people.

They basically treated me like family, and for the next couple years after that, I stayed with either Yusuf or Arafat when I visited Yale.

It was the coolest Muslim Students Association I’ve ever come across. Thanks for reminding me, Rawi
HijabMan at 6 June 07 :: #

Well, that’s the thing Rawi, all you up there didn’t treat me like ‘hijabman’ so it was nice to just, have good company, you know :)
UmmFarouq at 6 June 07 :: #

Any way the Axis of Evil comedy tour will come to Alabama?
It’d be well received.

Your experiences make me laugh and feel sad at the same time. I will say, however, that you are years beyond your years, and that’s a compliment.
sabrina at 6 June 07 :: #

it seems like you had/have good luck with meeting online friends. I travelled all the way to England, and had plans to visit few other countries in the region with people I had never seen but met online and even talked on the phone. It turned out something not-too-successful, with a great a learning expereince: I guess just my bad luck and risk averse attitude! Oh well! Next time, I will remain inside the country, hehe!
HippieMom at 7 June 07 :: #

who is this malaysian woman? :P

We’ve hang out on the same IRC channel when you were 14 and I was 19. I never chatted with you back then. After 10 years and after finally reading every blog entry, I finally contacted you. You need to have your wedding live telecast.
HijabMan at 7 June 07 :: #

UmmFarouq- I sure feel old :-P

Sabrina- Wear a balloon hat. It helps.

HippieMom: Oh yes, i forgot, I was also banned by the islam channel on IRC for years :)
yasmine at 7 June 07 :: #

HMan, i am SO going to live-blog your wedding. =) i’m sure you’ll have enough antics and shenanigans to make it worthy of live-blogging anyway. much lowve to the nerd child who first commented on the tagboard alongside one of my sad posts: ‘don’t vorry, chicken curry.’ the internet wouldn’t be the same without you!

okay, enough mushiness. go sing an ’80s song or something.
yaser at 7 June 07 :: #

dude, that’s so not what a shy person would do, offline OR online =P

p.s.: i love you too.
RandomMuslimah#82348734897 at 7 June 07 :: #

WOAH.
That’s scary.

:O

Re:‘Sara’ – did you have no concept of Internet safety??!?!
Aysha queeeeeeeee at 10 June 07 :: #

Heyo Hijab Man!

This has to be one of the coolest posts along side the one where you posted something about contemplating suicide in your teen years..

Wow…What you’ve written there is kinda similar to the phase i went through a couple of years back when i was about 11/12…

When i first discovered there was chat thingy on the music downloading program called ‘Ares’...i immediately made a nik and joined all the Islamic chat rooms…seeing as i was aware of the dangers of chat rooms, so i decided to opt for the better alternative.
Used to be on there 24/7…talking to elder muslims…some of the regulars used to be quite suprised that a kid like me could talk and understand at such a solid level..i didnt keep my age discreet…but i was wary about the amount of info i gave away…

But woahhh…you told your parents about this? You even invited some of your online friends for dinner?!..man your fam must be chill…

Never ever would i reveal my internet identity to my family…its something that i wouldnt want them to have a insight in…i dont ever tell em what sites i visit…like yours 4 example. If i was to tell one of my siblings that i visited your site regularly cos i thought it helped me…they’d be kinda concerned..oh well…

You sure are lucky to have an understanding and flexible familia.
Anjum at 13 June 07 :: #

hahaha you SHOULD show your wedding in a live telecast. That would be awesome.
Stranger at 23 June 07 :: #

Hijab i remember you coming to IRC/Undernet/ channel islam and loads of people hating you lol, but i found you so funny & cool, You must be very Thankful of all the ppl you became friends with

Welcome! This site serves two main purposes: to entertain and educate the Believing and curious community, and to generate a bit of cash—God willing. But there’s a lot more about HijabMan.

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