I started my telematic adventure on bulletin board systems indeed. Internet wasn’t a public thing back then, there was Fidonet, a private free bbs net. Private messages were called “matrix”.
Public messages were shared in “areas” just like our forums.
I met my wife in an area where talking about books. 
There was no graphic to spice up things back then: just plain DOS characters. Some primitive ascii art sometimes.
So no profile pictures! 
That old pic of mine arrived later, with Internet and forums. If I recall correctly, I bought my current motorcycle in 2002 and shortly after I started posting in a forum dedicated to that specific model. That’s when I did that picture.
So it was for a forum indeed. 