Are there any online chatrooms NOT filled with stupid kids?

I am crazy lonely.

I have no friends where I’m living now, and I don’t even have that many when I move out of here and go back to school. I do have one person that I routinely text, but she has a life and can’t be devoted to talking to me all damn day/night so I really would love someone else to talk to during the boring 7PM-10PM timeframe, and I remember back in the AOL days that there were chatrooms for everything under the sun. More or less these have been taken over by forums now, but with forums you don’t have the instant conversation piece that you do when you’re just talking with someone.

The only chat-thing that I know of is Omegle. I use Omegle and have had about 2 meaningful conversations on it, but the website is just filled with stupid tween kids wanting to talk about sex or whatever, and won’t give me the time of day simply because I’m a guy. So does anyone know of any chatrooms that actually have conversation going and aren’t filled with stupid kids being stupid?

Perhaps a chat room associated with an interest of yours will have better moderators, ban hammering obvious spammers? For example, I like a web game called the Kingdom of Loathing, their chat channel has the usual silliness, good gameplay advice, and general random conversation. Kinda a shame the SDMB doesn’t have a chat board.

Yea in fact the narrower the interest the better the quality of convo usually.

I have a question that dovetails the OPs.

Where ARE there chartrooms like the ones on AOL in their earlier days?

As the OP states, getting into a chatroom in AOL was as simple as a couple of clicks. I have no idea where I could do this now, even though I have often heard or read about Internet chat rooms.

I used to go to a chat room where car repair was being discussed. I can do that now, but it’s usually on a board similar to this one, without having that back and forth chat that I used to enjoy.

Anyone know where those old style chat rooms still exist?

(if anyone is wondering what I’m referring to, it’s the type of back and forth chat going on in one of those American justice pieces with NBC Chris Hanson on To Catch A Predator.)

Maybe they got such a bad reputation (note the reference above) that adults just stopped going there?
Just a WAG.

Maybe IM took over that role?

How about meetup.com?

AOL is still around. I use it only for the chatrooms. It’s free if you provide your own internet connection. I’ve been playing trivia games with a group of a couple 100 people (fortunately not all at once! the games usually have 7-20 people in them) for over a decade. Intellectually they’re a lot like Dopers: smart and corny and a few total dipsticks.

If anyone would like a link to these chatrooms PM me. Usually only populated around game times, though.

I believe at least one of the splinter boards has an active chat forum.

And the SDMB used to have an unofficial, not-really-connected chat room for many years. Back in the day, it was a lot of fun.

IRC, aka Internet Relay Chat.

You’ll need a client. I use Xchat.

There are a million topic-specific chat rooms. Most are frequented by intelligent thoughtful techies.

Actually, why not find a free to play MMORPG that can be fun to play, hook up with a bunch of people in a guild and chat online in game with them. I have joked for years, since I played Everquest 1 back in 99 that MMORPGs were mainly chatrooms with graphics and a little light killing. Or hit up Second Life which is mainly a chatroom with graphics.

Lord of the Rings is a free to play game, make an account, load the game and hit the forums and see which servers are english speaking [I play on a german speaking server] So far, I have not run into very many tweens sexting people, you might like it.

Since the OP is asking for advice, this is better suited to IMHO than GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

Well if you have a lot of patience, you can have a wonderful time on Omegle. Just create an imaginative and impressive opening line, and eventually someone with proper grammar will notice it.

I have some Omegle friends I’ve been talking to over a year now.

I’ve chatted with Dopers on two different media, although both revolve around specific games…

We use AIM to chat while we play our SDMB poker games on Thursday nights…here is our current thread for the quarter.

We do have a Doper Guild in World of Warcraft…sometimes we get on Ventrilo to chat or ideas to defeat Bosses in a raid…although we haven’t been using it lately because most of us are waiting for Mists of Pandera to come out, I think we will be using it again pretty soon.

Not sure if these solutions are up your alley, but I’ve have a few friends on the Dope because of it.

If you’re interested in games, you can also download Steam and look for a popular group. If you find a group with a lot of members, the chat room almost always has something interesting going on in it.

If you have a webcam, sites like ChatRoulette.com are a really good way to meet brand new people and see their penises.

The only problem with doing it while gaming is that I have a very very old computer that is in way powerful enough for the MMORPG games, and I didn’t even know aol chats were still around!

The IRC seems interesting…I’ll have to check that one out.

I’ll also second a doper chatroom.

The old SDMB chat room was on one of the IRC channels.

Not that I am glad that you, Sir T-Cup, were lonely, but I am pleased that your query was answered. I live alone myself (after many years of wedded bliss) and there are times when I get lonely as well. This is true even though I have some really great neighbors.

Anyway, if you decide you need someone to talk with (I am a relatively young to middle aged straight guy who enjoys discussions on many different subjects) then PM me.

Yahoo has (or had) chat rooms available through their Messenger. I used to use one often when they allowed private rooms to be created (there was one for Denver gay men). The IRC, as mentioned, is also a great place for chat. The last time I was on there were many thousand of chat rooms available for many topics.

Bob