icescream22OG 2004

Joining eZabel in May 2004 with all the excitement of someone who just discovered a secret clubhouse, Dena Colao from West Milford, New Jersey, burst onto the scene by immediately announcing herself in a journal entry, asking ophelia how the whole thing worked, and declaring "BRYAN IS THE ESSENCE OF BEAUTY" in her very first comment. She was self-aware enough to wonder if her introduction was dorky, but not self-conscious enough to stop being herself — and that was her whole charm. Dena was warm, earnest, and slightly sarcastic "in a good and nice way," as she put it herself. She dove into the Food forum with genuine enthusiasm for tuna salads and Edy's ice cream, championed Isaac Bashevis Singer and Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil in the Book Club, and wasn't afraid to share real opinions about everything from the Atkins diet craze to M. Night Shyamalan movies. Her writing had a distinctive cadence — winky faces deployed like punctuation, "thanx" and "laterz" closing out every thought, and a habit of spelling out her inner monologue in real time that made every post feel like a conversation you'd walked into mid-sentence.

What made Dena more than just another newcomer was her willingness to be vulnerable in a community full of established friendships. She wrote openly about cycling through friend groups, about people who stopped returning her calls for reasons she never understood, about the "amazing amount of immature ppl" who judged others for how they laughed or what music they listened to. She admitted she acted differently depending on which group she was with and that the "real me" only came out at home. Her journal about marriage reflected a young woman thinking seriously about life — watching everyone around her pair off at 21 while she planned for 24 or 25, shaped by her parents' divorce and her mother's philosophy. She connected most with rocksupastar, who helped her post photos of her totaled SUV and became her go-to for site questions; fivezero, who engaged her in thoughtful back-and-forth about movies and relationships; thatdarngirl, who she visited for apple pie and invited to beach trips; and ophelia, the friend who recruited her in the first place. She even brought her dad onto the site as eyescreemdad — a login name that was both a family joke and an origin story for her own username. A self-taught snowboarder who said the sport made her "feel like a cool superhero," an Applebee's hostess who surprised herself by thriving in a room full of young strangers, and a Girl Scout cookie ice cream enthusiast who refused to feel guilty about it, Dena packed a full personality into a single year on eZabel.

eZabel Personality Type: ESFP — "The Newcomer Who Stayed Real." In a community where inside jokes ran deep and cliques formed fast, Dena didn't try to reinvent herself to fit in. She showed up exactly as she was — enthusiastic, honest, a little unsure, and completely genuine — and that sincerity earned her a place in the northern New Jersey crew that no amount of cool posturing could have matched.