This has been something that's been bothering me for awhile, and by awhile, I mean since middle school. That was about the time when this thing called "AIM" became fairly popular, and although it still retains some measure of relevance, it has taken a backseat to things like FaceBook chat and text messaging via cellphones (although there is some overlap).
My first brush with the wonders of the internet allowed me to communicate with my friends from school without using a phone, which was kind of a revolutionary idea at the time. I think it was mainly to coordinate games of StarCraft, but I've never really been a hardcore AIM user. Sure I've dabbled in some of the intricacies and shenanigans that instant messaging affords and learned some do's and don'ts.
You don't ask a girl out over AIM, for one, although I must preface this "fact" with a bit of a disclaimer since I wasn't really asking her out since it was more a hypothetical situation that I posited that she totally took out of context (okay, maybe I was champing at the bit), but that doesn't give her the right to reveal my instant failure all over school the next day...bitch. Of course I been messaged by complete strangers, marketers, spammers, and been pounded with suspicious links. I've also been able to turn the tables, and donned alternative screen names (I've had as many as 6 linked together) and play mind games with my friends by pretending to be secret admirers.
But that's all played out. I hardly IM nowadays since I've found better ways to waste time online. I've always been interested in the way text conversation can completely change our personality in some ways. I consider my online persona to be vastly superior to my real life personality if only because I can actually take the time to think out well-written witty responses. My dry delivery in real life just doesn't compare to the textual panache I can muster up and some jokes just play out better in text than in real life, as funny as that may sound. Besides, you'd be hard-pressed to see if I can demonstrate this kind of sweeping eloquence in reality. Sadly, my existence is probably best left to words online since I'm not particularly memorable in real-life.
Digression aside, the issue that has always plagued me since I've jumped into the instant messaging bandwagon is a phenomenon I call the "dead trail." It's a bit like following a trail of breadcrumbs only to find it disappearing out in the middle of nowhere. I, of course, refer to the non-responsiveness of some people who just leave you hanging, isolated, and all by yourself in the vast electronic wasteland of the IM world.
You would think people would have the courtesy to let you go with an obligatory "brb" or "g2g," or even some basic level of acknowledgment that lets you know, "I'm outta here!" If it were a phone conversation they wouldn't think twice to let you know when they're busy, instead of just letting the line go dead like a dick. I'm guilty of of it myself, but that's only because I'm usually not there to respond. When I am there, I let them know when I'm busy, like a good citizen, and inform them of my current status to avoid this messy issue of non-responsive dickery. But for all those people who have initiated conversation, or responded back to my prompts, who in general let me know that there was a body behind the screen name, and yet still ditched me in the end, well fuck you.
