Confessions of long-term relationship girl in the digital era

I've been navigating the Steemit site trying to have an idea of who's who and who's involved in what.
I noticed the #relationship and #sex tags, my curiosity wen over and read on those posts; if some were self-explanatory (i.e.: Top 10 Reasons Why Men Are Attracted to Breasts, https://steemit.com/sex/@mjoriginal/top-10-reasons-why-men-are-attracted-to-breasts) some others left a big question mark in my mind.

Then I tough it was time to post some over-the-years rumblings about online relationships: long term, in the old times, in the modern era and some more.
Let me first state that I'm in a long term relationship with a man I met years ago over the internet.
It was the time when the IRC channels were a common state, while we, the old school people, were still intrigued with BBS and some kind of "Mr. Robot's fsociety" that was really freaking out every modem owner. Times when a DDOS attack was made over a backbone and people you met online were only a nickname; we weren't used to give out real names and no man/woman distinction was made: we were all "matey", we were all lonely nerd called "strange" by the others because of a black hoodie.

I had the luck to persist into online living and coding and able to see the changes, when the IRC was a new tool for people to meet news friends, hoping to find an everlasting love (really, the ASL question was the first discriminant of any user).
My nickname was masculine so escaped that black hole of silly questions dedicated to feminine nicknames, something like:
A: "Hello, ASL!"
B: "Hello, my name is Angelica and I live in London. What is ASL?"

As you can see the B's answer is well formed with punctuation and a sense.
Over the years this has turned into:
A: "asl"
B: "robert and u sux"

So I can say there's no evolution into grammar and proper use of the languages.. today the great nescience has become a status for many youngsters: see them omitting punctuation or conjugate a verb the wrong way.
Facebook holds the 1st place for this kind of behaviour!
On the other side, social interactions for common people were really easier as was really hard to find a catfish; girl met boy and flirted over the bits, they asked to be together and everyone in the channel was acknowledged about their virtual relationship.
Quarrels for newcomers were daily, especially if the newly signed up boy was kind of interesting of newly signed up girl was extremely chatty.
Then the couple broke. And the circle of life-and-love-over-the-net started again.

Let's jump a couple of years later, when catfishes appeared and the webcam was a non-futile item for chatting.
Our niche of "old schoolers" was still hiding in the dark but those happy people were populating our idea of strange-relationships and made us question how easy was to fall in love with a stranger. A stranger that could be anyone.
At that time I joined a group and met some people, the fact I was a girl wasn't affecting our jobs so I lived in that peaceful oasis for a long time more; there was a boy however that was matching my sympathy. He was polite, honest and with a great sense of punctuation!
We started chatting, about the channel common project, about him and his.. girlfriend!

I confess.
Me, the one who was thinking that online dating and flirting was only a joke.
Me, the one who was more willing to eat a snake (*) rather than having a virtual relationship.
Me, the one who felt jealousy!

The was also the time where avatar were common, when everyone had a website hosted, where ADSL was walking on and ISDN was quickly dismissing. The time when first dating sites came out and mobile phones were the only mean to exchange pictures with MMS in really low quality!
I never spoke a word about my state of mind to that boy and was happy to work with him; actually we were living really far from each other and the idea of a relationship was not on my mind; I'm more the down-to-earth person but, you know, life's strange!
So we carried on, sometimes a message, sometimes a chat, sometimes he made my phone ring (meaning: "Hey, nothing to say but I was thinking of you!") and all was quiet.

A sad.. should I say sad? For me was happy! .. btw, one day he told me he was having a "pause" with that girl. And I smiled. And laughed.
It took me days to find some nice words to say when he came back saying they both were trying again to carry on their relationship. No way, I was cut off. That day I started reading online about this kind of situations and the more I read the more I realized it was all a matter of mind, it was a thing for silly people and I was too smart to get caught in the trap!
With a fake smile on my mouth I wished them for happy ending but inside I was burning.

I talked with my online mateys and everyone said I was a fool to believe in this kind of feeling; they were all nice and friendly and recovered in a month or so.. until a ring.
A chat. He told me it was over. He was sad. Crying. And I was sad too trying to keep his moral up and - possibly - made him think of me.
It's absolutely crazy, I know. But I wanted him to feel interest in me.
I was a friend? A nerd? A geek? A.. girl.

And have to thank a remote-controlled toaster that gave me courage to write him back and say that I was not that sad for him. Later that day I made him a draw in which I was shooting his ex-girlfriend with a gamma ray. He didn't understood so had to go further by drawing a heart in ASCII on the DCC Chat we were having.
The rest is only us and we're happy as ever =)

Now I see all those statuses changed in a parsec, I can watch those whole lives burned in seconds, comments and quarrels and pokes of people living a hundred kilometers far. I can watch them hiding behind a blurred profile picture without punctuation. I can see the exchanging feeling via quotes and citations, memes and gifs..
And I keep on asking myself: was it really harder 15 years ago? Or it's just us that look at those girls and boys with a different, older, point of view?

(*) about the snake: it really happened I ate one, in Brasil. Cooked. Spiced. But that came later!