Really. As things stand now, my entire social life exists on the internet. Which is bad. I can never talk to people online without feeling that old juvenile conviction that they're only humoring me. That if they were standing in front of me, I'd see impatience in the tap of their fingers and amused condescension in the coil of their mouths.

I'd say I'm just paranoid, but I don't think that's completely it. Questions I ask sink into a conversation unanswered. Comments I piece together o-so-carefully---and cherish as much for their words as for their graceful expression of my Self---lie unremarked. In the absence of the nonverbal---of, truly, even the verbal---a lack of response requires interpretation. And so I am left to my emotional decoder...which *is* rather paranoid.

And so my words seem silly---over-eager, arrogant, ignorant, naive. In short, detestable. Which means I feel, in short, detestable. Puppyish, immature, witless, and self-righteous---all of which I know people have believed of me, all of which, on my worst days, I fear I am.

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