Way back in 2003, the Internet was still a lawless wasteland and meeting people on the Internet to then meet in person was likely to get you a kidney removed haha. Seriously though, meeting people from the Internet was definitely not a normal day to day occurrence like it is now.
At the time I was working third shift in a hosting data center in LA. Hours were about 10pm-7am or so, so entertainment was limited. If you didn’t have media downloaded or otherwise accessible, you couldn’t just fire up YouTube and get lost in videos for hours. So we created our own fun.
Enter the world of online dating, Flash videos that were basically the original memes, and social living as it was in the early 00s, when you never knew what the next page was going to show you or tell you. Serendipity was almost baked into the early mass usage of the Internet of that time.
Di was living in Perth, Western Australia and worked at an office doing clerical work. When she would get to work and get settled in for her day, her online time almost perfectly matched up to the US West Coast time zone I was working in.
One of the coolest features which was novel at the time, was being able to see who had looked at your profile. Di was really interested in meeting Americans so when I got to work one night late in February, I logged in and saw she had looked at my profile.
I looked at her profile to learn more and as luck would have it, she was online at the time and when she got notified that I looked at her profile, she messaged me and the rest is history. Twenty-three years later, a couple of kids, lots of bills, adventures and a slew of cars has seen us get to the point where we missed the old days of the Internet. When you never knew if something around the corner was going to be funny, gross, NSFW or a combination of all three.
So we hope while you are here, you can find a bit of nostalgia for the way the web used to be. Back when the Internet felt like a neighborhood rather than a shopping mall. And if you find your life long partner here, or just someone to hang with for the weekend, then all the better. Stay safe and have fun!
Brad & Di
Founders — and the original Casual Kiss success story