However it happens, it starts with putting yourself out there and hitting the Enter key. Leading up, there are several little moments on the forum, and out of the sea of usernames, a few start to stick in your memory. Eventually, you begin to keep track of their posts.

It takes months, but you realize that you’re forming a picture of a few of the users. One usually shows up in the middle of the night, active for a few hours before disappearing again. You wonder if they have insomnia, or if they live out of the country. Curious one night, you search for other posts they’ve made, digging for clues, cultural references, anything that could give you an answer. It occurs to you that someone could be researching you at that very moment, and your fingers pause above the keys. Is this creepy? Are you crossing a line? You’re ten pages deep in their old posts, though, so any wisdom from this realization is too little, too late.

You start edging into the conversation around them. It’s a fine line that you’re completely anxious of: you want them to notice you, but you don’t want to be a bother. You play with the idea of a direct message, but without any sort of context or post to reference, it feels way too vulnerable. Better not. Besides, what if they turn out to be a completely obnoxious person, or a bigot, or they reveal that they love Ayn Rand, like, on a deep and cellular level? Can you deal with that? (Memories of reading The Fountainhead for a lit class in high school may scar you a little more than you want to admit. Your instructor clearly had some sort of expectation about that book when he assigned it, but whatever it was, you cannot imagine.)

(You post something about this lit class, and Ayn Rand, and spend a few hours commiserating with most of the replies. One Rand supporter sneaks in and questions if you really absorbed the piece, and you find yourself disabling comments because the ensuing brawl is cluttering up your inbox.)

A few weeks pass, and suddenly there’s a note in your inbox, and that familiar username is behind it:

One new message from snaplolcat01:

    saw ur post on ayn rand.. the comments were a trip and i read every single one. really glad no one made ME read anything by her

There’s a little flutter of validation in your chest, and you eagerly type back a response:

    Haha, yeah, the comments got way out of hand, I should have known what I was doing when I posted that. Yah, your lucky. There are a couple scenes I just CANNOT unread. If you want my advice, stay FAR AWAY from those books.     *you’re (ugh, first impressions, and that happens)

A few minutes pass without a response, and you shrug it off and click away from your inbox. As you scroll and tap and read and respond, you have a little, vague smile on your face. Being noticed is always nice. Communication is slow but constant over the next few days, whenever you find yourself near your computer and with some free time. They never seem to be on at the same time you are, but usually, you find a new response from them. You tiptoe around each other, keeping the talk to whatever latest drama is happening in some section of the forums, but you carefully reveal small pieces of yourself, and the conversation branches to news and politics, movies, and one day, when your schedules seem suddenly to overlap, favorite childhood cereals.

It’s been months, you realize, since that first introduction, and your talks would fill several dozens of pages at this point. For the most part, they still respond while you’re asleep, and one day, you say, “You’re always up so late, you must be on a different timezone than me.”

You’re up late that night, working on an essay, when one of your open tabs chimes at you. You glance up and click through, and in your inbox find:

    haha, well idk what ur schedule is but im only able to get on after school and work     i usually read stuff here til i fall asleep

The essay can wait.

    Oh, gotcha     What are you studying

The picture in your head starts to flesh out just a bit more. You find out that you two have a mutual interest in biology, though you’re in a pre-med track and intending to go into law school, while they’re doubling with computer science and interested in how this all ties in with genetics. They’re balancing a few restaurant jobs as well as a position grading for one of the professors in their department. You can sympathize with the lack of available time; you’re supposed to be writing an essay right now, after all.

    oh dude i dont wanna distract u!!!

    No, you’re fine!     I need a break anyway, my brain feels like cement

The process of sharing is natural, sometimes abundant and sometimes halts, but never feels forced. The person behind the pixels seems as flesh and blood as anyone you know “in real life”, though you’re forced to confront your growing disillusionment with that phrase. You’d scoffed at a friend in high school who had had an internet girlfriend, asking how the relationship could be real if you’d never seen them in person. The internet had been a barrier back then, and while intellectually it made sense that there was a human being on the other end of the Ethernet cord, it was like watching shadow theater play out behind a scrim. It had never made sense that someone could fall in love with what you only saw as black and white pixels on a screen.

More and more, however, you’re forced to accept that you know more about this person than you do about many of the people you see on a day to day basis.

****

    This might be a bit weird but go with me on this

    yeah?

    SO I’ve never ever seen you in real life, but it’s so weird that I know more about you than the girl in my cell bio class that I’ve been crushing on and I see her for actual hours a day     And I don’t know a damn thing about her     We braethe the same air     *breathe

    it’s wild dude     i know whatu mea n     (sorry long day, typing sucks haha)     one of my tas was talking bout th is at a party (she was hella stoned, fukin wild XD)     going on about global societies an d how we as like a people could connect so mjuch faster to somenoe acoss the globe     easier than th people we see evry day     somthing about a keyboard makes it easier     ^^^her exact words

    Whoa

    i know rt?     maybs if bio girl gave u her fb u two wopuld talk     fuck dude i gott slep     i kno my typing sucks but this is embararasing     *embasrasing     FUCK

    HAhahahaha, no worries     I should get going too (though I wanna hear more about this TA)     (I never run into any of my profs or anything at parties)

    haha highly recomend, its an EXPIERENCE     cya dude

This idea of global society sticks with you, and their TA’s comment about keyboards. A keyboard offers a backspace key, and a way to edit yourself. You’ve said plenty of dumb shit on the internet before without necessarily stopping to think through the consequences, but then it occurs to you that at the start of this whole friendship, you’d sometimes gone through ten variations of the same two-sentence message before finally deciding to send it. It was a series of self-edits and careful selection of which parts of yourself you’d wanted seen. Just like real life.

There was comfort in the distance, though. Without a person in front of you, and with the limitless communication offered by a message sitting in your inbox, you couldn’t see reactions -- or judgment. This correspondence held more personal information about yourself than some of your in-person friends knew.

****

    So I got Maya’s facebook page     We’ve been talking, and we’re going to get drinks this weekend, maybe see a movie if there’s anything good out

    YAY!     thats awesome1!!

    Thanks! :)     If we hadn’t talked about global societies and stuff a few nights ago I dunno if I would’ve gotten up the courage to talk to her. Your advice for talking via computer made it soooo much easier.

    so ur saying im resopnsible for this new relationship?     *responsible     ur welcome ;)

Drinks go fantastically, and you and Maya decide to forgo the movie and head back to her place. When you finally make it back to your computer, there are a few frantic, nosy messages.

    HOWZ THE DATE     cmon dude im dying to kno

    i can only assume ur havn massive amounts of sex rn     and im v happy for u     but i need to know

    r u alive????