IRC is fun and if you start with it, it may make addictive.

Here in germany there are channels (chat room) for every bigger town. You can join and meet more people of your region, make new friends or maybe find your new girlfriend/boyfrined there. It's all about communication. At the high time of IRC (1994-1998) we had in my town 20-30 regular visitors, more guests and friends from other towns. We made regular meetings and so called channel-partys (CP), where ppl came from channels of other towns and also from other countries... e.g. once we even had two vistors from sweden. Great time! Yeah, I met a lot of new ppl and had fun most time. In the summertime I visited other channel parties and traveled arround germany, meeting ppl I never have never seen before - only virtual on internet.
It's hard to explain what's the fascination of IRC. Perhaps it's about meeting ppl from all over the world... but personally I think it's talking with people without anyone taking care on you look, if you're fat or thin, handsome or freak. You will talk with people you like, no matter how they look - IMHO the inside is more important than a superficial impression.

An IRC tutorial is available here (german version). If you need more help, please contact a moderator.