Hey there SSPX folks,

Just sending out a "howdie" to my fellow SSPX folk who took the courage and time to join this site and try it out.  If it worked for you, by all means, please share. I'd like to know.

This current state of the Church is - mildly put - "inconvenient" for a Traditional Catholic who is just trying to follow what Holy Mother Church has always taught through the centuries, and at the same time finding friends with common ground. I'm talking about both religious and secular common ground.

You have people out there who have been Traditional Catholic all their life and lived a life that fostered a Catholic environment. And then comes school. Or for some that did home schooling, then comes college. What do you do with that, right? You get to use your social skills - or LEARN social skills - and finally find people that understand you and like to hang out with you. You all thrive in that common area. But then there's religion. So you do your part in "restoring all things in Christ" and answer moral/ethical/religious questions the best way you know how. In the process, you lose a few friends along the way but then there are the ones that stick with you in the name of "modern ecuminism" (though they won't outright say it) and everyone will get along as long as we don't discuss the R-word.

And then you have the Traditional Catholics that came on board later. Maybe they came when they were adults or at least in their teens. They've been in the world for a little longer than the homeschooler, but they also want to live a life that is pleasing to Our Lord and Our Lady. But many-a-time they feel like an outsider in the parish because they can't really relate with their homeschooled counter-parts. There's a bit of small talk after Mass, but it doesn't really amount to much. They, too, have "secular" friends but their connection only extends to where religion only begins.

To both, praying grace before meals is almost a "show" infront of friends, going out is definitely a time to keep your guard to anything that is an occasion of sin, and the depth of conversations only reach the level of natural level.

And then there's dating. In the end, you find yourself dating someone in your circle of friends. If your social time is 85% with non-Catholics and 15% with Catholics, chances are, you're going to be telling your loved one about how Catholicism is THAT important to you and you can't bring yourself to have premaritial relations. The relationship is rather bitter-sweet.

What to do, what to do? Is it that hard to find Traditional Catholics? Till next time......

Did you know that you can chat here? Pretty awesome, huh? The steps on how to do it are below. You know, we should all get together and figure out a time where all of us are on this site and chat and stuff. Anyway, here's the steps:

1. On the tabs in the middle of the screen, click on "Chat." You'll automatically be in the "Lobby" chat room.
2. Off to the right column, you can see who is online.
3. To the bottom left, you can type in your message.
4. To the bottom right, you can see the other chat rooms. I don't know what they're for except for the "Friends" room. M = male, F = female; and it says how many of them are in the room. If you want to "enter" into that room, just double click on any one of them.
5. If you're bouncing around between rooms (and if you get to THAT point, it's a good thing. That means people are pretty active on this site.), just go to the top of the chat window and you'll see the various tabs of the rooms you're in.

The only catch, is that you can only see the people who entered the chat room, not necessarily the people online.

And if that's the case, then you can do the following:

1. On the tabs in the middle of the screen, click on "Members."
2. In the filters, make sure the "online only" is clicked.
3. For best results, don't choose just male or just female with a specific age. Just see who's there to begin with. Click the "Show" button.
4. Double click on the results to see their profile.
5. Click on the "Chat Now" link under the "Actions" window. A pop-up window will open.
6. Type your message in the bottom left corner of the pop-up window and wait for the other person to respond. If the person is no longer online, an automatic response will say, "So-and-so isn't in chat not, but your message will be delivered as soon as So-and-so is online." But if they are online, you will hear a little beeping sound when they respond.
7. I'm guessing, you can also upload music and video, with the links off to the right column that says "Music" and "Video."

Another way to chat, is the following:

1. At the top right corner of the screen, click on "My Presence." A pop-up window will open. (The pop-up window is a bit buggy, so I suggest going to the Members tab to double check who is really online.)
2. Click on the Online tab to see who's online.
3. Double click on the Dialog Bubbles icon to chat with the person you want to chat with. A pop-up window will open. (Now careful, it's still a bit buggy, so check the left column of this pop-up window to make sure you are about to chat with the right person. If you find you're not on the right one, do the following - it's a workaround: Click on someone else's Dialog Bubbles icon and see the left column to check if it's the profile you wanted.

Note:
A special thanks to Cecilia for asking how to chat in the first place, and to HockeyPlayer for being online at the time and gracious enough to be my guinea pig to figure out how this chat feature works.