Step into California chat rooms, and a whole world of possibilities awaits you. You may meet Golden Era Hollywood starlets, bodybuilding politicians, rainbow-haired and tattooed basketball stars, or CEOs of some of the leading venture capital and private equity firms around. California really does fulfill its promise of all things to all people, and nowhere is that exemplified quite so well as the chat room.

Of course, anything and everything you learn in the course of cruising room to room must be judiciously examined. This is true not just in California but everywhere, for there's no tried-and-true method of fact-checking your correspondents. The best defense against being suckered or swindled is a well-tuned baloney meter, which, if properly calibrated, can sniff out a fake from miles away.

The Wild West of California Chat Rooms

The flip side of so much fabrication is that there really is unlimited opportunity in California chat rooms. That aspiring Hollywood producer is more likely to be dishing the straight dope if his or her hometown's area code begins with 323, 310, or 818. Again, there's no way to tell for sure, beyond examining the "hometown" field found on many online dating services' profile pages. But one can just as easily type West Hollywood as Walla Walla.

If your newfound friends online are constantly griping about snarled bottlenecks, sig alerts, mudslides, raging fires, and empty government coffers, congratulations! You've found an honest-to-God Californian. Better yet, you already have a dozen mutual headaches that will give you ample fodder for conversation. Is there really a better pickup line than "So, are you ready for The Big One?"