A/S/L?

I love the internet; I love it even more now that I have broadband and wireless connection on my laptop.  I probably spend too much time on the internet, but it's a great pasttime for me.  I got AOL service in 1997, and for the first few months, I was pretty clueless about the internet and the subculture of chat rooms.  My first experience in a public chat room was horrible.  The second night that I had AOL, I found an X-Files chat room.  I went "in" and expected the chatters to welcome me with open arms.  Boy, was I wrong.  I was ignored.  Chat rooms are the most clique-ish places you'll find.  Well, I had had enough of that after about a half hour.  The next day I was telling a friend about my virgin chat room experience, and he told me about an AOL chat room that he visits regularly.  He said this room had no theme - it was just people like us that chatted about anything.  He emailed me a link, along with instructions telling me to click on the link (remember - I had only had AOL for one day and didn't know what in the hell to do).  I went to the chat room and loved it.  The chatters were just like me - people who work during the day, and who enjoy a little down time by chatting.  The group wasn't the least big clique-ish; on the contrary.  When I entered the room, all 20+ chatters said hello.  The time in this chat room was filled with chatting about current events, tv, music, sports - things that we would normally talk about at work or when we're out with friends.

I didn't chat too much the first few times I was in there - I was too busy "listening" and tyring to decipher their internet abbreviations.  The most frequently used abbreviation is LOL.  For those of you who may have just gotten internet connection and don't know, it means "laughing out loud."  I was able to figure out some other abbreviations used, but one had me puzzled.  When someone (not a room regular) would enter the room, they would often ask "A/S/L?". The room regulars would ignore this question.  My curiosity got the best of me and I sent an IM (instant message) to my friend and asked him what it meant.  He said "age/sex/location."  Ohhhhkay.  I was just introduced to the internet's version of cruising.  My friend replied "LOL."  He said that in some instances yes, but in most cases, the people just wanted to know who they were chatting with.  It made sense to me.

42/F/KY for me.  What about you?