The year was 1966: A teenager sits in his bedroom talking to locals on his "ham radio set". The same guy, in 1981, in his bedroom, talking on a newer tranceiver. Over those 15 years, that guy hooked up with locals often, over what are called repeaters. A repeater is pretty much like Twitter, only in audio. It was on the repeaters that we'd set up eyeballs¹. As you can see in the picture below, this wasn't new in 1966, it was going on for decades. 

(photo from http://www.mikedell.com/)

We'd check in, some using Foursquare-like "I'm at yada yada", which were as obnoxious then as they are now, when they didn't contain anything other than location. Others had the time to gab about Twitter-like things we talk about today. In L.A. in the 80's, there were a couple hundred people on each of the more popular repeaters. In all, I'd say thousands of people chatted daily in that one metro area of L.A., the valley, the marina, the hills...

When we met, it was called an "eyeball", inherited from CB slang. As more women became hams (again, thanks to CB), there was actually a chance you might hook up, which I did once. (There weren't more than two or three unmarried females online at the time.) The way this relationship began was that she had a piece of gear, a power supply for sale. Part of being a ham was swapping, trading equipment and technical expertise. I went over to her place to look at it, and we kind of "clicked", not on Morse code keys, on which she was faster than I was,  but personality-wise.

We remained friends after a short stint as lovers. She went on to earn her commercial license, which required 20 words per minute Morse skills, verified by a federal examiner and an advanced written exam. She got a job on an oil tanker. One can only imagine how she probably had her choice of a lot of men on that ship. She told me "It's funny, on my passport, under profession, it says "Seaman".

Mary, I wonder where you are today. I want to send you "88's - all over your body".

Having an eyeball was CB slang for meeting someone off air. This was particularly popular with teenage users who used CB radio to improve their social circle. More mature users often formed clubs which met up in bars and licenced clubs and these were also referred to as 'eyeballs' - on 'eyeball night'. CB Clubs caught on in a big way.