How to get laid on the internet

Relationships initiated on the internet are no longer news. They are commonplace. And if you have internet access there is no need to be lonely when studying far from home.

Dating websites such as http://www.amat.co.uk/person.html are fine if you can hang around waiting for an e/mail reply to your ad, but if immediate gratification is what you crave then leave the worldwide web and go real-time on what is known as Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Download some free IRC software from mIRC at http://www.mirc.co.uk/ if you have a pc, or from Ircle at http://www.xs4all.nl/~ircle/ if you have a mac. As soon as you install it you can chat to other ircers as fast as your typing speed will allow.

Unless you want a pen pal in another continent you should select one of the IRC servers on IRCnet. Follow the instructions that came with your software and selection of servers will be crystal clear.

IRC is divided into channels. You don’t need to join one but a channel such as #newbies is a good place to start. Before long you will be creating your own channels and inviting your online friends into them for communal chats.

Specialist channels such as #GayLondonSex, #GayBigCocks, and #LesbianSex may be a happy hunting ground for many. Type "/join #Londonfun", for instance, and your monitor will be full of such conversational gambits as " ANY FINE GIRLS WANNA FLIRT?"

Flirtboy1 is obviously a beginner. Shouting in BLOCK CAPS is frowned-on and will get you kicked from most channels by the channel operators. Don’t even ask to be a channel operator until you are accepted as a regular.

Whether any fine girls ever did flirt with Flirtboy1 is doubtful. One downside of internet’s global village is internet’s village idiot. Possibly he sharpened up his approach and changed his "nick" to something more appealling.

Give some thought to what nick you want to be known by. BigTool, SpiceGirl, or OasisFan, are so commonly used they will lead to embarrassment when someone sends you a personal message intended for somebody else. If you can’t think of a cool handle, try flicking through a large dictionary for an evocative adverb or adjective.

There are IRC channels dedicated to swapping pirated software and pornography by means of something called DCC transfer. Simple menu commands on your IRC software make this child’s play and it makes a lot of sense to have a picture of yourself scanned as a handy file so that online friends have some idea what you look like.

But when you accept a DCC transfer you are writing a file onto your computer’s hard drive and extreme caution is recommended before executing unfamiliar software that may unleash a virus onto your system. Consider the fate of Gary Glitter before amassing a library of obscene images. And don’t go sleeping with any strange women before reading the cautionary tale at http://byronik.com/sophy.html. Play safely.