I never speak on trains... Headphones in, music on, eyes down, playing solitaire. That's me. That's everyone. Trust me on this - I spend a lot of time on trains.

Just now I was on the DLR with a very large and very confused group of American teenagers and their even more confused adult chaperones / teachers / whathaveyou.

It's not that hard to get to Bank on the DLR.. you just sort of get on and go to the end of the line. But I suppose it's confusing if it's your first time and you're in charge of a zillion teens and their very bad skin (seriously, didn't they pack fucking pore scrub?! Eew.)

I digress.

One of the women looked at me with that look on her eyes and I could just tell... She was going to talk to me.

Now, I'm happy to help. I'm a helper. Shit, call me Helpy McHelperson if you like. But I was faced with a dilemma.

See ... They were American. And I'm American. Which pretty much means after I give them the information they were after [just stay on this train and you'll get to Bank, I promise] they'd recognise my accent and ask me where I'm from.

From there, we'd go on to details of their holiday and how long I've lived here.. it tends to be a very wicked yet predictable spiral.

That's just too much talking. We do not talk to people on trains. We stare at those who do from a safe distance. We watch people who talk on trains with a wary eye while pretending to play Bejeweled. Talking on trains is wrong. Talking on trains in a loud American accent is even wronglier.

Anyway.. It was a tough split second mental debate.

But I'm glad I got them to Bank safely. Go team America.

So four years ago today, I joined this relatively unknown micro-blogging service that we now all know and (most of us except the people who 'just don't get it') love as Twitter.

According to Wikipedia, "A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs 'allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links.'"

I'm not sure if that's how I best utilise Twitter - but it sure is fun to type the words aggregate file size. Aggregate. Aggregate file size.

Over and over again. Aggregate. See? It's like the word purple. Say it over and over and it suddenly becomes the funniest word and/or sound you've ever heard. Right? Purple aggregate. Aggregated purpleness. Go figure.

Totally random tangent (and hey, who doesn't love one of those?) Remember way back in the way back when WebRings were all the rage? You don't see those very much anymore. I guess those were so Web 1.0, huh? Don't know what I'm talking about? Get the hell out, whippersnapper, you're not old enough to be here. And you're probably not old enough to make me a cocktail and light my cigarette. Useless.

Wait. I'm kidding. Come back. Please?

Sorry - where was I? Oh, yes.. Twitter. So I joined Twitter on the 3rd of March 2007, scooping a relatively enviably short username (@ebeth).  I believe I said about four things and didn't look at it again for a year. As a side note, I just went to myfirsttweet.com to look up my very first ever words on the Twitter. Here was the response: "Sorry, something went wrong. This is what I have recorded as your error: Too Many Tweets."

I didn't add the boldness to TOO MANY TWEETS, they did. Do you think they're trying to make a statement? I mean, I know that as of this very moment, I've sent 55,586 tweets into the vast emptyness that is the Internet... but, seriously? Is that too many? Do I have issues? Does the void really need to know that I had a chicken, lettuce, carrot and cucumber salad for lunch today?

Fuck it, I say, 55,586 isn't enough. [update: I'm now on 55,587]

But, I digress. [and I digest, that salad was tasty]

One day in 2008, I decided to give it another go. You know, bark a mighty hello in less than 140 characters. So I did. And then, while in the cat food aisle at the Sainsbury's, I told the Internet that I had a wedgie courtesy of my Victoria's Secret underpants. Some people tweeted me back, we had a conversation and I was hooked.

And that, my darling electric children of the future, was when I finally 'got' Twitter. All it took was a rather fetching pair of incredibly uncomfortable underpants. Well, that, my MacBook, an iPhone and any other internet capable device that I could find.

I've tweeted in classrooms, parks, airplanes, roller skating rinks, cinemas, office buildings, stores, libraries, churches*... you name it. I've told the Internet more stupid things than I can recall.

I met my partner through Twitter (you will note I'm now calling him partner instead of boyfriend... I'm feeling mature today.) In that respect alone, Twitter changed my life. For the very better.

I adopted a kitten through Twitter and I have a Twitter vet (who is the awesomesauciest vet ever because he doesn't flip out if I text him at 10pm asking silly animal questions). My ex has a Twitter lawyer. I've been drunk with more Twitter people than I probably should've and thrown more parties than I ever thought possible. I'm the co-creator of a little thing we like to call Fuckoffee, #ebethchallenges and an awful lot of whatnot, so on and so forth.

I've made friends and kept them. Pretty sweet for throwing 140 characters at people every now and again.

Oh and... I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I've said jizz an awful lot more than I ever thought I would over the last four years.

Jizz.

Sweet, sweet jizz. It's what brought us all together, electronic friends. Wedgies, vodka and jizz.

I raise my virtual martini glass to you all.. here's to four years down, lord only knows how many more to come!