When e-Male Meets e-Female : Members of America Online’s ‘Over Forty’ chat group venture outside of cyberspace to a Dana Point party to find out what their computer pals are <i> really </i> like.

Shortly before Lorene Mies of Coto de Caza moved out, her husband asked why she spent so much time in front of her computer “chatting” with others on her computer service.

She replied acidly: “Because someone answers me back.”

The night after she left, she spent four hours on the computer being comforted by soundless words on a computer screen. They were sent by old friends she’d met “on line,” some of them thousands of miles away, many whose true names she did not know, none of whom she had ever met.

Mies dived into this electronic tide, and it carried her inevitably to the first meeting.

She had encountered him by computer. She was attracted to him by telephone conversations. Now she agreed to meet him in the parking lot of the Newporter Resort.

They talked on their cellular telephones as they drove there. They arrived and parked. They walked toward one another, still talking on their telephones.

And though it was the first time one had actually seen the other, “we immediately hugged,” Mies said. After all that computer pillow talk, “you feel comfortable.”

This was not the only such story floating around the bar at the Villa Mexican Restaurant in Dana Point on Friday night. About 25 other cyberpals had gathered, all members of the American Online computer service, all habitues of the same “Over Forty” chat group, all eager to see the faces and figures that go with the computer monikers.

The party had been arranged, of course, over the computer, and organizers expected 50 or so to show up at either the Friday “mixer,” the Saturday beach party or the Sunday brunch.

“Hi, I’m PamelaK601,” said the woman who approached a group at a bar table. No one asked her real name. Few would have recognized it.

“This is Johnny Angel, but he doesn’t sign on much,” she said.

“Glad to meet you,” said one of the group. “I’m Modem Junkie.”

A man at the table said it’s normal for outsiders to be confused by all this. “People who are not on AOL, they have no idea what’s going on,” said DenSoCal (Dennis Gallagher to his friends back in Temecula).

“The parties are all over the country,” said Sarah Reuter (SMS 7831), an advertising copy writer in Redlands who helped organize the Dana Point gathering.

“There was a big one in Philly last month and one in Chicago in May. We had a small one in Thousand Oaks in July. They’re planning a national Vegas bash next year.

“Most of the people who come to these have not met before. We’re all from the Over Forty room, and whether we’re all going through a midlife crisis or whatever, most are divorced or single. Or they’re married and not fanatic about it. It’s like a computer dating service, if you want to call it that.”

It’s more than that, according to Lady Aruba (Diana Laduke of Monterey). It’s a crisis support group.

“I left my husband in July, and I lost my access to AOL,” she said. “One of the people on AOL sent out the news, and I got 300 printed pages of e-mail (electronically transmitted messages), people comforting me and supporting me. I’m currently living with a woman I met on AOL.”

Gallagher said he struck up a computer acquaintance with a woman whose teen-age daughter died during their weeks of correspondence. “She asked me to keep the death a secret. I told her you can tell people on AOL things like that and they’ll support you, but she said, ‘No, don’t tell anyone. I need a place to go. This is my only escape.’ ”

“I’ve been on line about six months,” Reuter said. “That makes me a vet. I see a lot of loneliness and a lot of pain. I know I’m on because of loneliness. I’m still in the process of a divorce, and I didn’t go back to work outside the home until April. It was a case of being isolated and wanting some friends. It’s very addictive. There are so many people to talk to.”

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America Online claims a membership of more than 1 million nationwide, the fastest growing service in the country. Its most popular features are e-mail and “chat rooms,” temporary mini-networks of people whose short, written messages flash almost instantly on the screens of everyone else in the “room.” The rooms are labeled “Romance Connection,” “Over Forty” or the like. The aim is to gather people of similar interests and simulate conversation at a party. And as in a party, you can draw someone aside and “talk” privately.

Just how addicted these people are to such cyberchat is reflected in their monthly bills.

America Online charges $9.95 per month, for which you get five hours on line. Each additional hour is $3.50. Jack Martin’s bill is “$500 every month. My first month was $711. You have to make money to do this.”

Martin (JackM1111 when he’s on line) at least temporarily held the distance record for this party. He’d flown in from his horse ranch in Denton, Tex. Seated at the bar in cowboy hat a boots, he was attracting a lot of attention.

“This lady,” he said, his arm around her, “I met her for the first time tonight, and I love her. She’s the sexiest lady on line.”

She left, then returned with another woman.

“This is Sensuous 9,’ she said.

“No, I’m not,” said the other. “I’m Sultry Eyes.”

“You do have sensuous eyes,” said Martin.

“ Sultry eyes!” she insisted.

Martin mollified her and she left.

“All this is a little strange, let’s face it,” he said. “But I got tired of the bar scene. I got on AOL because you could meet people. You meet a person’s personality. You get to know someone’s mind. There’s a lot of B.S., but some people are honest. You can pretty well read them.

“When you gain their confidence you get their phone numbers, then you call them. Then you meet. You can get yourself hooked up doing this.”

You can also get yourself severely hurt, he said.

“I see people get hooked on a personality that’s a lie. The person on the other end is just writing a book. They fall in love with someone that doesn’t exist, and that’s sick. I see this all the time. I see it tonight.”

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On line, you are what you say you are. America Online allows its subscribers five sign-on names, and “you can use them as your alter ego and be a completely different person,” Reuter said. “I’ve heard of men masquerading as women, women as men, people saying they’re single when they’re not, people saying they’re married when they’re not.”

Protected by anonymity, able to withdraw at the click of a button, shy people become assertive, fat people become thin, plain people become beautiful, fearful people become sensuous, teen boys become love gods.

So the uninitiated can be in for some surprises.

“I had a man writing really beautiful letters,” Mies said. “He said he was very tall and a cowboy. We met, and he wasn’t either. He had a New England accent. This happens a lot, I guess, because people are always saying to me, ‘It’s amazing. You are who you said you are.”’

But sometimes the surprises are not so slight, Reuter said.

“All the women get harassed by porno messages. I don’t get as many because my screen name is so androgynous. But a woman with a name like Soft and Sexy is going to get tons.”

Some of the men will want you to go off into an electronic corner for “hot chat” or “cybersex.”

“You just avoid these people, although there are some women who like it, I guess,” Mies said.

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Those who invite approaches can transmit photographs into an electronic image library for anyone to see. The listings not only show the person’s screen name but how many times the photo has been viewed.

The numbers show plainly what most people are after. SoSexyLisa’s photo was viewed 11,281 times in three days. Sexylegs4U was seen 3,107. JoniBook, however, attracted only 385 viewers, and Mr Donut, 14.

“I’ve found that relationships on line tend to develop at warp speed, and I cannot figure out why,” Reuter said. “I think you are more open because if someone says something you don’t like, you just click them off forever. A lot of people spend a solitary existence, and this is, to borrow a phrase, reaching out and touching someone.

“At these parties, some relationships are created and some are broken. Most of the people have never actually met before. It’s almost a joke on line: People tend to fall in and out of love like you change your socks.”