Online language

You start all of a sudden:

• hey
• <3>

I look at the messages. You only love me out of nowhere when you mean it or when you intend it to soften me. I know this time it is the latter case.

• hey
• :)
• how's it going?

No love sign from my side. Though I show you contentment, I do not reply lovingly. Hence, I let you know there is some imbalance between us. I let you know that you fucking another guy, although we have both agreed upon it, has changed my feelings for you, and I do not love you like before.

It is for naught, though, as you don't reply, and a few hours go by. Your status turns to red, which means you are doing things in the real world. I then decide to close my chat windows to either work or sleep, so I send you a thoughtful but unemotional message:

• good night

Your status turns green.

• hey :)
• <3>

"darn", I think. Love at the beginning again, confirms your willful intention.

• hey you're around (professing coolness, unbotheredness - thinly veiling my disinterest for you at the moment)
• i am now
• :P (P for Playful, Pay attention to me, "I want to have a conversation with you", "I care about you and I want to see where you're at")
• i was out earlier (I wasn't ignoring you before, I was out for a reason)
• i did this, i did that, blah blah blah... (These are my reasons. We have started talking now. Ask me about it.)
• busy night for you (I refuse to follow suit with a trivial observation with not much room for extension)
• no kidding (huh)
• are you going to bed? (don't you want to have another one of our long conversations tonight?)
• soon, yes (I don't)
• we have an experiment to run at noon (I give you a sloppy excuse that you know would not stop me if I really wanted to talk to you)
• i see (huh)
• how about you? (Polite question intended to end our conversation with an uncold, somewhat responsive feeling from my side)
• i have to put some clothes in the dryer and then get in the shower...i am waiting for wash cycle to finish (ok, I'll answer your dry question. I am trying to get on your soft side, anyway...)
• ohhhhh man that reminds me
• tonight is trash night (Yes! I found a valid excuse to leave this conversation!)
• I have to go and take out all the remaining junk from my backyard
• cabinets, wooden boards, etc... (And I tell you useless details about it to do a bad job at concealing my desire to leave)
• we'll finally have a clean backyard
• :) (Look, a smiley face. I'm happy. Not about talking to you, but I'm happy about something. Stop worrying.)
• so what happened to jodi? (Just tell me this quickly and I can take out the trash and end it there. I'll extend the conversation just a little bit longer to strengthen the lie that I'm not avoiding you)
• she just called... just a sec (no subtext)
• ok (yes!)
• I'll go take out trash now (bye!)
• I'll be about 10-20 min (I'll be longer than that, and I hope you will have fallen sleep or will be taking a shower by then)

I go outside and take out the trash. I take my time, not wanting to hurry too much. I come back 30 minutes later.

• done (hello? please don't be there)
• poor trash guys are gonna have a tough one with our trash (humorous comment that will end everything in a good note if you don't turn up)
• :P (I'm here! haha)
• no kidding (Fuck!)
• did you put your clothes in the dryer? (Throwing you a bone. Why am I so nice when I don't feel it?)
• i just got off the phone with jodi =/ (Concerned smiley means you have something to tell me)
• she called right when you logged off
• yeah you told me (I know that, you don't need to tell me that)
• i forgot :P (oops! lol! :P :P i'm cute!)
• hehe (feigning amusement)
• i was just leaving (don't you remember??)
• my night has been busy (I have stuff to tell you still)
• and you said she was calling (don't you remember??)
• oh yeah :) (oh yeah lol! :P :P)
• sure seems like it (mmhmm...)
• so what's she going through now? (just tell me this one thing and I can stop this conversation gracefully)
• can you talk? (let's talk)
• i wont keep you up late (pretty please)
• :P (I'm cute lol!)
• :) (noooooooooooooo darn! Your "pretty please" cannot be rejected without you becoming upset or disappointed, and I would be the bad guy... fuck...)
• ok (siiiiiigh. I give you my night hours to talk, I fuck you a couple of times every 3 or 4 months. What a deal.)
• let me switch (Fuck, what I do to keep you happy)

We have a webcam conversation. I act like always but dryer. I listen to you, but I don't apply much effort to changing my facial expressions as your plot develops, or to look at you all the time. It is an act of patience and self-restrain, watching you talk while I only think of ending our conversation soon. Sometimes I interest myself in your life, but tonight I simply don't care. You ask me what I did, and I list a few things. Although some of them are fairly significant to me, I list them dryly, plainly, cutting the detail to a polite minimum of which you cannot justifiably complain. I look around my room constantly, and it hints you that I want to end our conversation soon. You mention it. You're looking all around the room - if you want to end our conversation we can do that. I lie: No no, I'm just seeing if I can relate anything I see in my room to something else I can tell you. Both are true - I compromise too much between conflicting objectives sometimes. But the real truth has been spoken, and it's out there, and we both know it. It is embodied by our expectant silence. Our conversation ends soon enough, and I give her a weak "I Love You" sign without vocalization, feigning tiredness. After our video feed is off:

• <3>
• :):) (I'll tell you anything now that our conversation's sure to end. Sure, I love you. I'm happy to have talked to you, sure. I'm just glad it's over)
• <3><3><3> (You can do better than two hearts. See, I love you more. Isn't that easy?)
• i love you (Now you say it. I'm saying it, you can say it too.)

If I don't say it and close my window, I can pretend to not have seen your message, or I can pretend to not care. The former indicates my rush to get away, the latter a wound in our relationship. And replying promptly and heartily would be a plain lie. So I use time. More than a minute later:

• i love you (There. Have it. After some thought, I have decided that I love you too. Spontaneous, huh? That's true love, all right. Night.)

And my throat feel tense, pulled, as it restrains my damaging feelings from coming out from inside me and causing havoc on my Life. Jealousy, Envy, chipped Pride, Sadness, they're like toxic high-pressure gases for which my throat serves as an overused but effective valve. And now, my skills at instant messaging do that too.

And I don't care that 2 hours have passed since we ended this conversation, and my sleeping time is being used up by writing a blog entry of which I care much more about than I did about our conversation itself.