#you'vegotmail

Hi interwebs <3

I’ve realized over the quarantine that I am missing letter writing and emailing for other things than admin and university related subjects. Maybe you’d love to do that too? I am a 28 year old Danish female student living in Copenhagen Denmark and I’d love to gain friends from all over the world. I study plant and food science and I’ve always loved the international aspect of my field -I rarely have a class which is only attended by Danish students. 

I have many interests and hobbies, but the main one must be reading. I read so many different genres ranging from nonfictional textbook science to classics to fantasy to horror to poetry to autobiographies and more.  I love watching tv shows on Netflix with my boyfriend, playing games on steam and playstation (an old favorite is Spyro) and scrabble, movies are a passion not fleeting entertainment, I try dabbling in photography with my instax mini and painting following youtube tutorials. Paradoxically I haven’t read any Austen novels yet, but I’ve seen most of the adaptations and would love to discuss them. I also love languages and am trying to strengthen my German and French, but would love to learn more, like Russian, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese to name a few. One day I will be able to play the piano at a satisfactory level, which won’t give the same feeling like nails scratching a blackboard. 

After speaking with a colleague, it came to light that each of us had spent some time in our respective childhoods in online communication with older men. “Creepy older men,” more specifically. While I have long been aware of the effects these interactions with strange men who were sometimes three times my senior have had on me (and my relationships with-- surprise!-- men), I have not known many individuals who have shared in this same experience. My sister, for one, and a close childhood friend, but other than those women, who? Who else is out there, now in her twenties or thirties, reading these words and thinking, “This happened to me, too,”?

I’m seeking connection and healing. Maybe you are as well. I have intense unresolved feelings. Maybe we can help each other.

While I recognize (and grieve) the fact that this kind of interaction can and does still occur today, I am especially looking for women (and men, but particularly women, sheerly because I am one) who were using the internet in the late 1990s or early 2000s and were in semi-frequent or frequent contact with at least one older male (or female) in a way that was abusive or inappropriate. I am interested in those of us who were online back in the “Wild West” days, before the public (and our parents) had an accurate perception of the potential of the World Wide Web as a tool for communication and connection.

I will provide a template a-la those blog-style surveys generated and filled out in the late 90s/early 2000s. Feel free to fill it out and send it to me anonymously to be posted here. Or not. If you want to share your experiences, this is the place. I’ll probably also be posting stories that make me feel good, and pictures of stuff that I like.