Years and years ago, back before the Internet, many of us with home computers and modems called (or ran) bulletin board systems, or BBSes. On these BBSes, we talked — and sometimes made friends with — complete strangers. Occasionally you would run into a weirdo, but for the most part you ended up meeting people with similar interests. I met one of my best friends, Justin, after calling his BBS 25 (Jesus!) years ago.

This, of course, has been amplified in today’s Internet age. I’m a member of at least a dozen different online forums. On those forums I talk to people on a daily basis, and there are lots of people that I feel like I “know”, despite the fact that I have never met them in person. On more than one occasion, I’ve offered to meet online friends of mine that happen to be traveling through Oklahoma City at a restaurant for dinner. Some people, I’ve even extended an offer to let them stay the night at our house. Granted, we used to do this more back before we had children and had the room, but the idea’s still there. And it was always okay, because we “knew” those people.

So earlier this week … there’s this guy, Adam. And I don’t want to make it sound like I knew Adam all that well, because I didn’t. We had talked once or twice, mostly about old Commodore computers, but that was it. Adam had a daughter from a previous marriage, and another daughter from a current marriage that was in the process of dissolving. Adam was recently laid off, and was having financial issues as well. At one point in time, Adam talked about taking a road trip across country to get away from things for a while. I told Adam that if his travels led him across I-40 to let me know and I would gladly buy him dinner and a beer. And, knowing that the guy was having financial issues, I probably would have put him up for the night as well.

That trip’s not going to happen, because earlier this week Adam shot each of his daughters multiple times, and then shot himself.

Even though I wasn’t remotely close to Adam, this story has been haunting me all week. As the father of two children … the act is beyond disturbing. What little I know of Adam’s personal issues have been gleaned from a handful of posts on a small Internet forum. There are others there who truly knew Adam, people who had met him and visited with him and hung out with him, and they couldn’t have predicted this. No one could have, I suspect. His last post on my friend’s forum was a few months ago. Apparently, between then and now, something went horribly, horribly wrong.

I wasn’t close enough to this guy to be someone he would have ever reached out to. Still, I can’t help but to think what might have been had Adam decided to take that road trip instead. Maybe he could have found some peace or a little clarity in the distance. Maybe dinner and a beer and a bit of conversation could have given him a different perspective.