Much of that initial novelty of the internet has worn off. I hardly even use the internet for chatting anymore. I haven't even "met" anyone new online for two or three years. The few non-Racine people I talk to online (and our conversations are becoming few and far between) I've known since junior high.
Online relationships seem like they're becoming harder and harder to pull off. They're so... synthetic. When I'm talking to someone in a different state or a different country, I feel my sense of reality just drifting away. It's as though I should be talking to "real" people (in person) instead of faking a social life online. I've become disinterested in talking to any of my online friends anymore, because... well, like I said, it's so fake.
I know it's almost impossible to be "real" online. I know I'm not "real" online. When I talk to people from Racine online, most of them are incredibly dull. They say stuff like "LOL" or "oh" and think that counts as an adequate response. (Not everyone, but a lot of them.) And I know they're not as monosyllabic in real life. (I'm the opposite. I'm speechless in real life, but online I "talk" a lot.)
So even talking to people online who (whom?) I know personally is synthetic. The whole freaking internet is fake. I can't go online to escape real life because the cyber world is languid. I can't escape cyber society in real life because my real life is languid. Both worlds suck.
The good thing about the internet is that it's flexible. Real life isn't quite as much. If I don't want to talk to people online, I don't have to. Most of the time when I am online these days, I'm invisible on ICQ or not logged onto AIM at all. If I get an e-mail, I don't have to reply to it right away. I usually do, but I don't have to. It's nice to be able to dictate how much I want to succumb to the deceptive "seduction" of the virtual world by a simple click of the "Disconnect" button.