What Does ASL Stand For?

ASL isn’t like the other acronyms. ASL stands for Age/Sex/Location, and is often abbreviated as ASL. It is a question that is used when you appear in chat rooms to know the age, gender and location of the person who just entered a chat room. You can use this anytime in a chat room to know them better.

@burtreynolds517 that's what you get for finding yourself in a weird late night chat room #ASL

— Mike Costanzo (@EasternStandrd) May 20, 2015

The basic purpose of ASL is to know whether the other person who has entered the chat room is someone you would want to befriend or not. This is done on the basis of the age group they belong to and their gender. The location part of ASL is mostly not considered important when making new friends.

How to Use ASL in a Conversation?

Now while the most common way of asking someone in a chat room what their age, gender and location is, is ASL. Simply. But you can also write it as A/S/L/ or a/s/l. The meaning for all three forms remains the same.

Let’s look at a few examples which you can use to understand how to use ASL if you ever need to.

Example

Person 1: Hi, ASL? Or Person 2: Hi, may I know your a/s/l?

In both the examples above, the people who would want to know the answer to your age/gender/location would approach you directly. And from what I know, there are very few people in chat rooms who write the full form of ASL to ask a new member of the chat room these questions.

How to respond to someone who asks you your ASL?

Using ASL in a conversation with newbies in a chat room can be easier than answering it for someone.

ASL is a very personal thing. It is your personal information that you are giving to someone. Telling someone your age, your gender or your location in a chat room can be considered very dangerous as there are all sorts of people from all corners of the world.

While there might be good people who genuinely are there for a good relationship, but there is always a high possibility of having stalkers or people who could harm you in the future.

So it is highly significant that you make sure that your answer to ASL is very general and not too giving to the other person. You never want to give the exact information in the first chat. It is important that you get to know the person better to be able to trust them enough to tell them your age, sex and especially location.

So here are a few examples of how you can respond to someone who wants to know your a/s/l.

Examples of Responses for ASL

Example 1

18/female/Pennsylvania

Now in this example, you are being too upfront about your information. You shouldn’t be so open about giving your information out like this. So, to keep things safe, you might want to change your answer and write something like this:

Mature enough to have a decent conversation/female/ Somewhere in America

Now here, you can notice that the information is enough to know that it is someone you can talk to. The exact age doesn’t need to be displayed here.

Similarly, telling the chat room members that you are from America, will give them an idea about you and whether, if things work out, you would be able to meet them or not. It is not mandatory that you tell them the exact region or area that you live in. That is too much information which should not be shared on such social networking forums. Especially when you don’t know the other person enough to trust them.

What to do if someone keeps asking you, your ASL and the details?

If someone is very persistent and keeps forcing you to tell them your ASL, you should probably step back from talking to that person anymore. It is possible that that person is an internet troll who is probably in the chat room to trouble people.

Can I use ASL and other abbreviations for Conversations other than Chat Rooms?

It all depends on what sort of a relationship you are at. For instance, if you are already friends with someone, and have a very frank relationship, you can use short abbreviations because they would understand them. Or even if they don’t, they can ask you about it without being awkward.

On the other hand, if you are in a professional set up, like an office or are meeting someone for the first time, you should prefer using the full forms of any acronym.

Yes, it is considered a ‘cool’ culture to know all the acronyms. But come on, we all are learning something new every day.

And for this internet culture, every day brings a new internet slang like LMAO, FYI,TBH and other internet popular jargons.