SwimFinsSF

Why SwimFins? :)

Why SwimFinsSF you might ask…

Damn fine question… dates back from before the dawn of time… well not quite… but since college for sure…

swimfins goes back to my college years… Back in the CS labs at CU when I discovered this crazy thing called IRC… Thought it was the collest thing ever and got hooked - was chatting with folks from around the world… Used it primarily to practice my german cuz it let me meet people in Germany who actually knew german (as opposed to my 40 year old high school german teacher who wanted us to call her ‘Fraulein’ - sorry kids - but if you’re 40 you’re Frau whether you like it or not - least so my german friends tell me)…

And - on IRC you need a ‘nick’ to use as a handle - kinda like CB Radio folks have. I picked swimfins cuz I had been a swimmer as long as I had been walking - my parents started throwing me in the pool and off the diving board as soon as they thought I wouldn’t sink.. So swimfins seemed fitting (and since I’m devoid of any creativity it was the best I could do)

Then right after college I discovered the whole gay thing (ya know - that I was into guys instead of girls).. Then the whole online chat thing took on a whole different slant. The first guy I dated showed me AOL and the gay chat rooms and I met boys from all over the place. Was REALLY liberating to realize I was far from alone ( Also discovered after meeting a few in person the difference beetween ‘AOL inches’ and Inches that are on a ruler! )… Since I had the swimfins handle from my IRC days it stuck…

SwimFinsSF came about cuz after an AOL tantrum where they pissed me off I canceled my account - then discovered that I couldn’t get it back - not even for AIM… so I picked SwimFinsSF since I lived (and live) in San Francisco… worked for me… Been using it ever since and it seems to be unique enough that I’ve been able to stick with it around other places too..

Kinda handy cuz its given me a certain level of anonymity but yet people could be pretty sure that, even though they didn’t know everything about me, that if they saw SwimFinsSF lurking it is probably me…