If you were lucky enough to have owned a computer in the pre-teen stage of your childhood, then chances are you had an MSN messenger account in which you awkwardly flirted and quite intensely chatted with friends until the early hours each night.
If you didn’t, you’re lucky, you didn’t embarrass yourself on the internet from an early age. If you did, then you have an acquired bunch of very niche memories from quite a tender part of your life.
See if any of these ring any bells, g2g…
1. The ordeal it was to get your mum off the phone so you could dial up
Screeching at her for hours so you can sit idly on MSN until bedtime.
2. Changing your font and text colour maniacally each time you spoke to someone new
Only losers, and like twenty year olds keep the same font forever.
3. Speaking in abbreviations because WTFN (why the fuck not)
Wuu2, brb, g2g, cyl8r, jk, k.
4. Asking a friend if your sworn enemy is online because you swear they’ve blocked you
And being only raging you didn’t block them first.
5. Listening to Windows Media Player so you can show everyone what you’re listening to
Which was usually Avril Lavigne or Panic! At The Disco.
All downloaded from Limewire, obviously.
6. Nudging someone who didn’t reply
Terrifyingly needy.
7. Appearing offline to get the weirdo from your class to stop talking to you
It was the only way they’d learn.
8. And then being absolutely bulling when yer one you fancy signed in
Why is life so cruel?
9. So you sign out and then sign back in again
Repeatedly.
Just to give them a heads up that you’re there.
Waiting.
10. Then wait 10 minutes until you strike up a conversation with them
You don’t want to come across too interested, yanno?
11. Then if they don’t reply, whip this one out of your back pocket
‘Sorry, that was my friend’
Solid.
12. Emoticons
Emojis before emojis were even conceived.
And having to get your friend to send you them all when you got a new computer.
13. Changing your bio to a song lyric because you were really fucking sad
And you wanted everyone to know it.
14. Typing ‘wb’ at the end of every message
Because how on Earth would they know what to reply otherwise?
15. Lots of *~*~*~*~tHiS*~*~*~*~*
16. ån? †hîß
17. And even more ??????g ???? ????
18. Asking someone their a/s/l
Illegal behaviour.
Also what were we planning on doing with this information? We were 12.
19. The excitement when you saw that someone was typing
And the agony that came when they stopped, with nothing to show for it.
20. Becoming drunk with power you got upon blocking someone
For that was the only kind of drunk you were getting – you were 12.
21. And finally, trying to flirt via MSN games
Which never, ever, ever worked. Even when no one was on the phone.
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