thank you, this is what i ended up with:

open (file, "<file.txt");
  @file = <file>;
  close (file);
  foreach $line(@file){
   ($var1, $var2) = split(/\=\=/, $line);
   if($chat =~ /\b$var1\b/i){  #the item i was looking for
    print "$var2";
   }
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