For those of you who don't know, IRC, which stands for Internet Relay Chat, is a place on the Internet that's a lot like AOL's chat rooms. It's a place where horny gay guys, and lotsa other lonely, bored people, too, can go to chat with other lonely, bored, horny, etc. people in the hope of finding someone cute, hung, and honest they can hook up with, in a cyber way, or on a phone, or maybe even in reality. Of course, it hardly ever happens that way.
Anyway, if you're interested in joining this kinda thing, first you need an IRC client, like Ircle for Macs or mIRC or something for wintel puters. You can download these at C-NET's Download.com Then, after you install it, you have to find an IRC service and server you like. There's a few out there, like EFNet and Undernet that each have a lotta servers you can connect to. Of course, before you do that, you have to pick out a nickname (nick) that will be your name when you get connected and on a channel. Once you get connected, you can get a list of channel names that people are chatting on, pick one that looks interesting, and join (by typing "/join #channelname" in the box.) Then just start talking, or watch a while to see what things are like before you join in.
Here are a couple links to homepages for guys I met on IRC: