Meet People in Palma Chat

It's nine at night and Marcos, who has just finished a shift at the port, connects from a shared flat in Santa Catalina. He's not looking for hookups or party plans; he just wants to unwind with people who won't ask him why his hands are covered in engine grease. His first message - "Does anyone else hate the smell of diesel after work?" - gets three responses in under a minute. A girl from Inca tells him she smells like freshly baked bread and that's not much better either, and just like that, the night begins. Marcos doesn't know it yet, but he'll be back tomorrow. And the day after. And on Sunday, when someone brings up the topic of tourists mistaking the cathedral for a Game of Thrones set.

The topics here aren't from a manual. At six in the afternoon, when the early risers say their goodbyes, someone asks if it's true that the Mercat de l’Olivar sells fish that's still blinking. At midnight, the night owls discuss whether the reggaeton in the bars of La Lonja is worse than the sepulchral silence of the streets at 3 am. There are debates that repeat like rituals: whether the best ensaimada is from Ca’n Joan de s’Aigo or La Mallorquina, whether the Sóller tram is a tourist scam or a work of art on rails, and why on earth nobody warns you that it's freezing in January. There's also practical help: "Where can you buy a plug adapter that's not from the Chinese shop on the corner at an exorbitant price?", "Does anyone know of apartments in Son Gotleu that aren't a dump?". And yes, sometimes the atmosphere gets heated - like the time half the chat took the side of the girl who stood up her date for sending her a 5-minute audio at 2 am -, but it always ends in laughter or a "well, I'm off to bed, got to get up early tomorrow".

What makes this room unique isn't the topics, but how they're treated. Here, there's no such thing as being politically correct: if someone says they hate sobrasada, they'll get a "go back to the mainland, traitor" without malice, but firmly. There's an unwritten code: on Sundays at night, when the island empties of tourists, the room fills with melancholy and people asking "do you guys get sad that the weekend is ending?". There's also the tradition of absurd nicknames: "PalmaKeepsMeAwake", "TouristOnTheRun", "EnsaimadaGrandma". And then there's the "weather crazies": every time there's a weather alert, three or four people obsessed with the AEMET radar appear, giving updates every ten minutes like they're live weather presenters. Nobody pays them any mind, but everyone expects them.

Joining is easier than ordering a coffee at a bar on San Miguel street. No registration, no password, no ID required. Just choose a nickname - it can be "TheOneWhoCantSwim" or "LookingForAFlatWithSeaViews" - and type away on any IRC client (mIRC, HexChat, even from your mobile with AndroIRC). The server is irc.chatzona.com, the channel #ConocerGentePalma. There are no written rules beyond "don't be a jerk"