Sheryl and David McKenna’s lives revolve around a network of computers that dominate their Lombard living room.
Each night, they eat dinner in front of their individual monitors, placing the couple about 10 feet away from each other, back to back.
David, 34, uses a left-handed clicker. Sheryl, 42, sports a right-handed clicker. Each taps a cigarette into an ashtray. Their figures resemble a mirror image.
The pair spend hours playing word games and carrying on lengthy chats with people across the world. The couple met on-line, romancing each other over the Internet before they met and married three years ago.
So, for the 4th of July bash they will throw this weekend, the guest list is composed of people they have never seen–and know only by computer-user nicknames such as “Giz” and “Casp.”
The 11 guests are flying in from across the United States, with one couple–that’s Giz and Casp–arriving from London.
Despite oft-publicized warnings of sexual predators and scam artists on the Internet, the McKennas say they have no fear about their company.
They describe their on-line companions as intimate friends, having shared hours of typing, clicking and demonstrating emotion through universally shared codes such as ROFL! (Rolling On the Floor with Laughter).
They all subscribe to the Delphi network, at www.delphi.com/livegames, where they lead and participate in fast-paced word games that resemble the former television show, Password.
“My mom and my friends said, `Are you out of your mind?’ ” said Sharen Skorup, 43, of San Francisco, describing the reaction to her trip to the McKennas’ party. “I said, `I know them.’ For two years, I’ve been on Live Games.”
Other guests include Lisa from Huntsville, Ala.; Kerryann from Harrisburg, Pa.; Chris from Pittsburgh; Ginger from Philadelphia; Marni and Trina from Villa Park; and Sandy from Baltimore.
“My first impression was that all of these people were so weird. Don’t they have anything better to do?” said Sheryl McKenna, a computer specialist, describing her first foray into a chat room.
After spending a few weeks observing people communicating from around the world, she became addicted “in a good way.”
Friendships develop over time, said David McKenna, a computer programmer who confessed that he sometimes spends the entire night at his computer, even falling asleep over it.
“We don’t swear. We don’t make a lot of sex jokes. We all play a word game. It’s a process of natural selection,” he said.
Before the couple agreed to meet, they talked on the phone for hours.
“He said, `How do I know you’re not going to rip me off?’ ” Sheryl McKenna said. “I said, `How do I know you’re not Jeffrey Dahmer?’ “
During the weekend, the partygoers will barbecue at the McKennas’ home and likely spend a night or two playing the computer word games that brought them together.
Any problems these relationships suffer have more to do with downed phone lines or obnoxious users. Teenagers who occasionally overrun the site are the most exasperating, David McKenna said.
“They never shut up. They’re always right,” he said. “They don’t know how to behave. They think they’re the most important thing in the universe.”
