The History of Gal Pals

A couple of factors made WOW unique. First, compared to AOL, WOW was tiny. Second, except for the lobbies, all rooms were member-made, and the maker of the room could decide who was admitted and who would be DENIED. Third, there were no IMs (gasp).

In this environment, those of us in the 30+ and over 40 crowd quickly found each other, created our own special chat places, and truly got to know one another. Real friendships were formed, and we learned to care strongly about one another.

We joked, we played, we flirted, and yes, some had online loves (ok, all of us had online loves, but who was watching anyway). Unfortunately, from time to time, real life intervened or online life turned bad. From these unpleasant experiences Gal Pals was born in late spring 1996.

It happened one day when several of us were in one of our usual rooms chatting away as always. (I'm not naming names for a couple of reasons: I wouldn't want accidentally to leave someone out, some of the originals members are no longer with us on AOL, and, since all Gal Pals are equal, I don't want anyone who has joined later to think she is less important to the group than those who were there at the creation.)

One Gal Pal entered the room obviously upset and needing to talk to someone. Several of us offered to make another room where she could unload privately, and off we went to that room, one to talk and the others to listen.

After the one who was upset let it out and began to feel better, those of us in the room realized what we had just experienced. We started talking about how great it was that we could do this for one another. It was just so cool to find ourselves part of a group of women who could listen, be there for each other, and offer understanding and comfort so selflessly. And, we realized just how lucky we were to have "gal pals."

Right then and there, we decided that we wanted a way to make sure that we could do this whenever one of us needed it. And, Gal Pals began.

We decided that we needed a way of communicating to one another that one of us needed to talk privately without having to tell the whole room what was going on. This was easily solved when someone reminded us about how we always joked about pinky swearing in the rooms. So, P.S. (pinky swear, duh) became the code. All a gal had to do was come into a room and say P.S. and the rest knew to reassemble somewhere else for a gal chat.

Now all we needed was a room name that would let others, who hadn't been online when the room was created or who had been elsewhere at the time, know that a session was going on. Simple solution...come up with a room name that would be used ONLY for such occasions, and that would be recognizable only to another Gal Pal. And thus "Gal Pals On The Lake" was created.

If you were in a chat room and a Gal Pal entered and said P.S., you excused yourself as soon as possible and went to "Gal Pals On The Lake." If you signed on and saw "Gal Pals On The Lake" on the list of rooms, you knew that one of your gal pals had a problem that she wanted help with or something that she wanted to share.

Gal Pals was created by a small group of women on WOW primarily to support one another in times of need. After we came to AOL, Gal Pals was recreated primarily for the same reason, but also to hold this special group of women together in AOL's bigger online universe.

There's a lot of bad online amongst the good, and it is important to us to have a place where we can feel good about ourselves, our friends, and to give and get support and love when we need or want it.

Copyright © 1997-2006 GAL PALS.
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