e-Love
By: Zarayacob

Gud meTa, gud meTa…genfo zaf lay weTa.

I am one of the hundreds of Ethiopians who frequents the Ethiopian chat lines. I have been part of the "online 18th street" for the past 5 or 6 years. In the early days, it was the only way I had to connect with other Ethiopians. I lived in one of those towns you couldn't locate on a map!

I do not miss meals for sake of chatting anymore. Beye apartment building wusT sigeba weTu bayasneTsegnm, I now live where there are number of abeshas. That has not completely stopped me from visiting yechiger Qen mesedejayEn.

Like most people, I have never taken the chat lines seriously. It is just one way to kill time. On occasion I run into interesting people and have wonderful discussions. By any standard, I would not characterize the habesha channels to be intellectual. They are more like "online bars".

At the end of last year, while on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), I run into a friend from another state. We started to chat about the usual stuff; entena ena entena endih honu..sera …"boring stuff". While talking to my friend though, I noticed an intense conversation between two people I had never seen before.

They were talking about a topic related to the physical sciences. Quite a change from the usual yet neber seferesh? … amed beduqEt yemilewT?…not to mention the bad Ebonics...ughh …

One of them had a female nickname. An Ethiopian female talking about science on IRC? Ewnetem sementegnaw shii. Remember, I have been part of the online abesha community for quite a few years, and I'm not making a generalization when I say that.

For the next few days, I saw the same female user trying to provoke different people into intellectual conversations. Curious, I sent her a greeting message. The usual selam. Without even responding to my greeting message, she asked me if I knew anything about the search for the Grand Unified Theory. Although I have always been interested in physics, I have never used it to pick up women. What a nerd!

The conversation that started out discussing physics ended up covering many other areas, except anything personal. We didn't know where either one lived. I didn't know her height or bra size. And, for a change, someone who was not worried about the circumference of my chest or biceps.

For the next few days, I started going online whenever I'd get back from work. She and I had no appointments to chat, but she somehow knew I would turn up, and she'd wait for me. We would spontaneously start a conversation, and continue chatting for hours. My bedtime was pushed back to 2a.m. Then 3a.m….!

With each passing day, I grew restless. If she had not logged on, I'd stare at the screen and wait for her without talking to anyone else.

One evening, I asked her for her location. She was in DC, on school break. Unfortunately for me, she did her full time living on the West Coast Bicha Kristian tesfa ayqorTm.

Eventually, we started talking about our personal lives. I told her my name. She told me hers. We talked about our family. I admired the amount of respect and love she had for them.

We both knew that a special bond was developing. I craved for her. Wanted to talk to her day and night.

Few days later, I asked if I could hear her voice. She gave me her number with no hesitation. I logged out, and dialed the number. A calm, soft voice answered the phone. It was "her".

We were still not brave enough to talk about any "extra" feelings, so we reverted to our regular conversation, the "important stuff". Our conversation lasted for more than two hours. It was intense and beautiful. For the first time, I noticed that I was falling for her. I didn't tell her, but I am sure she sensed it…

Weeks passed….

All this time, I had not seen her picture nor had she seen mine. I asked her if she was curious about my looks. She wanted to see my picture if I chose to email it. So I emailed it to her. I didn't ask to see her picture because I felt I might lose the special non-superficial feeling I had for her. I was sure that no matter what she looked like, I was already in love.

Deep in my heart, I knew the odds of us being together were small. However, that didn't deter me from wanting to be with her. A girl you would only meet once in a lifetime. Was it a bad gamble? I didn't think so. After all, I had been with another woman for two years and thought I knew her. I was completely wrong about her, so what is there to lose?

From time to time, she would tell me that talking to me overwhelmed her. "After we finish talking, I feel as if I was just hit by a hurricane", she'd say. I believed her.

Things moved fast. I felt as if I was traveling through a long dark tunnel, with no light in sight. Unknown future... I had never met anyone who would make me high with mental stimulation. With deep conversation and thought, wonderful personality! Everything I wanted in an Ethiopian woman…

She told me her vacation days were coming to an end and that she would be moving back to the west in few days. Although I had not physically seen her, I felt as if she was leaving my arms and going far away. I might never see her. In a strange way, I felt as if I was about to say good bye.

I finally got the courage to tell her that I thought I was in love with her and that nothing would stop me from wanting to be with her. She told me that she liked me a lot but that she would have to think about this whole thing. Finally...one of us was being rational. I hated it!

She was not done with school and she had to concentrate on that. I offered to give her all the time she wanted. Then she mentioned the boyfriend that she was not sure of. She had told me that they were not together. At least, she gave me the impression that there was no future for them…she was very confused… I suppose it is understandable…

A week later she moved back to school. I didn't hear from her for few days.

I missed her.

The cool and calm, Zarayacob was way over his head with hopelessness. Finally, I couldn't stand waiting for her email. I wrote her a poem and emailed it…

Few days later, she wrote back. She had missed me, too, but was unsure of the strange relationship we had started. I suppose I didn't want to lose hope, yet I suspected how all this would end.

I responded back with the following, an old kirar song:

I didn't write more…

For two weeks AOL did not send me a notification that my email was picked up. She has not checked her email. With every passing day, I was losing hope…

And just when I was starting to think that she was going to be just a bright spot in my memory, I run into her on AOL. She seemed happy yet scared to "see" me. I had the same mixed feelings. I asked her why she was not checking her email. She said that was afraid of her feelings and that she had stopped logging on to the Internet or checking her emails…. She hated being confused …

She then continued telling me that she is trying to fix the situation with her 'boyfriend'. I doubt that she truly loved him. Then again, why would she end it, for something ultimately "not real"…

That day, we were unable to talk about the usual "important stuff". All I could say was how much I had missed her and want to be with her.

She only typed the word, getaye.

She would try to start regular conversation but was unable to finish it. Every phrase that came out of her did not make sense…we were both confused and emotional. By the time we were done talking, we both ended up where we had started. Not knowing what we wanted and what was going to happen… I suppose I knew what I wanted, but she had to be rational.

She asked if she could call me on Sunday, and we hang up….

As promised, she called me on Sunday evening. I was excited to hear from her. She was laughing and in a good mood. However, it didn't last for long. We started discussing our friendship and we could not agree how it should continue… I grew frustrated with each passing second. She would try to explain how difficult it would be to have a relationship between us. Although I knew the risk I was taking, I still wanted much more than a conversation partner…

We were losing even what we had. We had stopped exchanging thoughts and ideas… our conversations become emotional… We were overwhelmed…We wanted more.

YeqoTun awerd bla ye bebetauan Talech.

We really were losing what little we had. I offered to just go back to being good friends who enjoy stimulating conversations. By then she had started to cry… She said that she was not sure if she could manage to treat me as just another friend… Although I knew it was true, I could not bear losing her… Still crying, she announced that she has to let me go…She couldn't deal with it.

SimEn aQolamTa Terta, she hung up, still crying…

I have neither emailed her nor heard from her since.

Ok. Ok. You do not have to say it… I know I am crazy!

What do these "online bars" mean to Ethiopians? Especially, to Ethiopians in Diaspora? Chat lines are probably the only way we have to network with Ethiopians from every corner of the world. Where else does an Ethiopian in Malaysia be able to exchange ideas with an Ethiopian in Utah?

And perhaps it is the nature of "openness" that keeps us coming back… that chat lines are unencumbered with the superficiality of a "physical world" and render it irrelevant. Instead, thoughts and interests are the main driving factors of the discussion topics.

It's not a bad start.