in love with her the whole time she has been his babysitter and he has dreamt of this moment and now it is here and he will def want to be with her forever. I wish I wasn’t like that.
8. Have you ever noticed that your job performance or productivity suffers because of the time spent online?
Obvi.
9. Do you check your email before something else that you need to do?
I can’t even get involved in email anymore, because it usually requires more than 140 characters. If I do send an email, I use Siri to do it and dictate the thing. So, the Internet has destroyed my attention span to the extent that I can no longer email. The Internet has gotten me off of email. The iPhone has gotten me off the laptop. If the laptop is cocaine, the iPhone is crack. And I take these hits of crack before, during, and after everything.
10. Do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?
I’m usually in a comatose state and not aware of the world around me. When I’m down the rabbit hole, I don’t see you.
11. Do you find yourself anxiously anticipating when you will go online again?
I’ve had the shakes.
12. Do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?
My biggest fear is dying. Death is fine, but dying itself—the inability to breathe, the final panic attack—is really scary. I’m also scared of life itself, since dying is implicit in life. Sometimes life seems hyperreal. Like, I look at people and they look like robots or like they are made of rubber and I think I am witnessing the lifting of a matrix, but it’s probably just anxiety. In those moments I am like, Damn, no one knows what’s really going on here. My therapist doesn’t help. She can’t explain what’s going on here any better than anyone else. She can’t stop me from dying. The Internet can’t either, but it’s a good place to tether that adrenaline. It’s easier than rubber people.
Another thing I am afraid of is rejection. If anyone is going to reject me, I’d rather it be me. When a real human being rejects my IRL self, or I perceive a rejection of my IRL self, I need confirmation that I am worthy of being on the planet. The way that I achieve this confirmation is to garner fake love from strangers via an avatar that resembles me.
These attempts at reparation of my core self, or lack of core self, always result in a cascade of binge tweeting. I immediately follow the binge by deleting all or most of the tweets and then follow the mass deletion with a shame spiral.
13. Do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, or joyless?
No, I think it would be beautiful. I imagine myself on a rocky beach, clutching something green. It’s probably seaweed, but maybe it’s moss. I drink a lot of chamomile tea. I “show up” for myself. Yeah, it would be empty.
14. Do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?
If there is anything I don’t like, it’s linear time. The Internet makes me feel like I can bend time. I can’t bend time, so I just say “five more minutes” and then fall into a vortex. I go into blackouts.
15. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being online?
Obvi.
16. Do you lose sleep due to being online late at night?
This morning I woke up at three a.m. and went online. It’s now six thirty in the morning. I’ve done that every night this week, except for Monday, when I didn’t go to sleep at all. I think the Internet replicates the sun. Maybe goth/emo/highly sensitive people shouldn’t be on the Internet. We are bound to wither.
17. Do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?
When I was still drinking, I used to show up at bars, already drunk, and quickly order a drink. I’d pretend that first drink at the bar had gotten me drunk. I kept my So Sad Today Twitter account anonymous, partly because I was embarrassed by how much I tweet. I feel like there is a connection here.
18. Do you choose to spend more time online over going out with others?
The Internet means I get to be with people without leaving the house. Also, I can be anybody I want to be. Like I can be