Some background to start with...

For starters, I had the typical shy, geeky k**'s c***dhood..self-conscious, nervous when talking to girls, etc. I did date, but had little success...did better in college, but even still, when your reason for being in a relationship was 'because it was there', something's wrong. Not that the girls were bad or anything, but in most cases, I dated them because they wanted to date me, and my self-image was so bad that I didn't know any better.

College planted the seeds for where I am now, though. It was the early days of the internet, before I really caught on to the idea that you could be anyone online. One of my teachers had another teacher help out with an online class debate...and secretly switched identities, to see if we'd noticed. We didn't, but that experiment really brought it home to me. I'd always fancied myself a good writer, published in the high school and college lit mags, so I tried an experiment of my own. Could I write a convincing female role?

I created a persona and backstory, and naively took to a chat room. I wasn't ready for the attention a woman got in chat rooms, even in those days. Before I knew it, I had chat requests from several guys, asking for details, chatting me up. Success! I had a few false starts from time to time, but as time progressed, I got better at it. Looking back, I can't tell if they were able to read me or not...I suspect many did, but just didn't care....

The cybering requests didn't take long. I played along, flirting like a college-age girl...the attention was heady, and it really was good jack-off material. It wasn't gay, though, or so I told myself...I was playing a role, acting. Riiiight.

Eventually, finals came around, then graduation, so I stopped...but the foundation had been built. Alyssa had been created, and started to have some life of her own.