Rosalie Lubotsky’s friends sing her praises: she is always there to provide a supporting hand, share a good joke, or simply give company — online, that is.
Lubotsky introduces herself as a former brain surgeon to capture peoples’ attention, because as she puts it, “brain surgery always gets everybody to listen.”
In truth, the native Milwaukeean worked at Columbia Hospital in medical records before her retirement. Now a resident of Chai Point Senior Living Apartment Complex, she enjoys a large circle of friends, many of whom she meets in an online chat room called “Shmoozers.”
Despite what the aura of youth around “new media,” online chatting and instant messaging are no longer the realm of teens or technologically savvy adults. Defying cultural stereotypes — and giving ageism a black eye — some older adults are very comfortable in the digital age.
Lubotsky is one such adult. Every night for the past decade, she signs on to an AOL chat room as “Milwaukee Rose” and spends an hour or so with a group of close-but-far friends. There, she feels at ease in the company of likeminded people, most of whom share her Jewish heritage.
Over the years, she has developed close connections, just as meaningful to her as the other way around.
It all started with a Chanukah gift of a new computer. The first night, her son-in-law plugged it in and left. Knowing absolutely nothing about computers, she immediately started playing around.
She tried a keyword search for an author she liked and quickly found what she was looking for. Then she hit “Jewish” and up came a variety of Jewish links, chat rooms among them.
It was mostly curiosity that intrigued her in the beginning: somebody different to talk to, something new to do. Quickly, Lubotsky got hooked.
Over a decade later, she skillfully maneuvers online. She is quick to point out that the real time conversational feel of chatting is conducive to her senses. In her view, it’s like talking on the phone or in person, enhanced.
Other chat rooms were tried out but rejected, because she didn’t find them as stimulating and they didn’t provide enough intimacy. Most importantly, in “Shmoozers” no one is judged, she said.
The regulars — the same group that Lubotsky met that first night with her new computer — meet online at the same time every night, although some people take Fridays off for Shabbat. When someone is five minutes late, the others often respond with playful teasing, asking, “Do you have a note from your spouse?”
On the days she can’t make it online, she immediately receives e-mails and instant messages, asking if she is okay and where she has been. And on the day she knows she can’t make it online, she asks her family to pass along the word to prevent what she calls, “an inquisition of where’s Rosie?”
“There’s nothing sacred amongst us,” Lubotsky said in a recent interview in her home at Chai Point. They discuss news, politics, elections, art, religion, and any random tangent in between — it all depends on the mood of the room that evening.
But the most important topic of discussion is family, she said, adding that she knows what instruments or sports everyone’s grandkids play, which colleges they attended and who’s marrying whom.
One group member’s granddaughter is planning her wedding to a Chasidic rabbi. So Lubotsky and her chat group friends are learning the rituals and customs of a traditional wedding. After hearing about the wedding for the past two months and getting to know about the young bride, she feels a part of the celebration. “Well, we are going to the wedding!” she joked.
Occasionally, Lubotsky and a chat room pal discover that they share close relatives or friends. Those kinds of random connections are part of the magic of the Internet, Lubotsky said. “It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
Lubotsky speaks about her online friends with excitement and reverence. When asked how close she feels to them, she said, “They are better than friends; they are family.”
Like any family, they exchange pictures of their birthdays, their loved ones and important events in their life. Lubotsky’s own family — she has two daughters and a granddaughter — think it is great that she is a part of this tightly connected and caring community.
Talking to people from all around the country, Lubotsky sometimes gets a first-hand account of the news. One member’s granddaughter was a student at Virginia Tech in 2007 when the campus shooting took place. That personal connection brought the event closer to home for Lubotsky.
She acknowledges that the relationships are not always harmonious. Conflicts sometimes develop among Shmoozers, leading some group members to splinter off and open a new chat room, if only temporarily.
But the drama is one part of a delicious, life-enriching experience for Lubotsky. “At this stage of the game, we do bicker like any other family, but in the end, it’s all love.”
A writer, Michael Rayzman moved to Wisconsin last year from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a recent graduate of the University of California at Davis with a degree in psychology.
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