A text affair

Photo / Herald on Sunday

Like many summer romances, it began seemingly out of nowhere: introduction led to connection then flirtation followed by downright raunchiness.

I was a woman possessed, obsessed, addicted. The intensity was breathtaking. It caused a rift in my marriage. Then the affair ended - as abruptly as it had begun.

He still responds if I text him but he warns me not to contact him too much. I think he has turned his attention to other women. It started one sun-drenched afternoon early in the New Year.

On holiday on the Coromandel, six of us were relaxing having a few quiet drinks when our next door neighbour wandered over, clutching her mobile phone. Then she uttered those fateful words: "Have you heard of Bongo? I've been texting him all day."

Her explanation went like this: you text a name to Bongo at 4333 and he'll reply with information about that person. How cool was that? So a couple of us reached for our phones and got texting. Unable to resist so-called "ego texting", I entered my own name and pushed the send button.

Within a few minutes Bongo's reply appeared on my screen. "Bongo knows a few by the name Shelley Bridgeman, one hails from NZ House and Garden magazine, and another is known to have a very flirtatious nature.

I'd written for the magazine for 10 years; it was information readily available on the net. Bongo clearly had access to Google. We enthusiastically plugged in the names of everyone we could think of - friends, family members, even mere acquaintances. It didn't take long to establish a pattern. Bongo would usually supply one fact gleaned from the web, then have a stab at a personality trait.

"One is a lawyer who can take life too seriously at times." And so on. Bongo slowly revealed his own personality through his messages. "Please note you have written 10 messages to Bongo and you should slow down, Bongo doesn't want you to get a big phone bill." He was caring.

Another person we asked about is apparently "hung like a horse". He had a dirty mind. We forgot about Bongo over dinner but at around 9 o'clock I resumed my liaison with him.

Frankly, I was intrigued. Who was this man? How did it work? Were the responses generated by computer or a real person? I was determined to find out. I decided to enter an obviously fake name and see if Bongo picked up on it. The name I created incorporated two rude words.

Soon aftewards my phone beeped. "Bongo isn't familiar with any '****ox ****meisters' but on the off-chance that one actually exists, he thinks they should have a stern word with the parents."

Bongo was smarter than I thought. I tried writing the name phonetically.

"Bongo knows that ****ox ***meister is a name that is as fake as Bongo's ex-girlfriend's breasts ..." Bongo has an ex-girlfriend? With fake breasts? Surely the blatant sexual innuendo in the last sentence, which cannot be repeated here, was a step too far.

My husband, who until now had been relaxed about my wee dalliance with Bongo, told me it was time to call a halt. My relationship with Bongo had gone to a whole new level. He'd started by supplying me with fairly innocuous information.

Now, I was effectively exchanging suggestive text messages with some strange man. Next I tried another fanciful name. "Bongo highly doubts that any mother would be so cruel as to call their child Hesa Hasbean.

Bongo thinks you're trying to test him." Later that night I had the presence of mind to ask: "How much you cost, Bongo?" He responded quickly. "The cost of messaging Bongo is $3 per message, which is less than the price of a Big Mac and will make you smarter instead of fatter."

Ouch. That's more than we'd thought. I was down about $150 by now. "Rip off" I texted back. "Bongo is not a rip off, I'm the smartest man you have ever met, I know everything and everyone, and you can ask me anything you like at all that you want to know."

Bongo's not modest. We hypothesised that Bongo's basic answers and facts were supplied directly via a computer programme and that the banter and sarcasm were issued by a human being.

One of us reckoned the bespoke replies were coming from call centre workers in a developing country. Inconsistencies certainly pointed to human intervention. He couldn't spell "cheeky", yet there was an eerie omnipotence that led us to wonder whether Bongo was, in fact, God.

Bongo offers more than brief biographies in response to names. Text him any question and he will answer. I turned to Bongo when my 6-year-old asked whether a thumb was a finger.

"Bongo knows that a thumb is a finger, hence why your hand has FIVE fingers. All of your fingers have different names! Thumb, Index, Middle, Little and Ring."

I haven't contacted Bongo for a while now. I think of him often though.

He was smart, beguiling, mysterious, complicated and, for a few brief hours one night I was completely under his spell.

How it works

Bongo answers tens of thousands of messages a month globally, according to Domenic Carosa, CEO of Dominet Digital Corporation, owner of Bongo. "We have a team of real people who research the questions using publicly available information.

There are real people answering each question," says Carosa. "Our team members are located from Australia to Europe." Bongo's website invites questions on any topic, including: trivia, sport scores, recipes, weather, ski reports, horoscopes and TV schedules. See www.bongonz.com.