Love is an online presence

Assignments. Ohhh they're a bitch and a half.

Exhibit A: Cait thinks that she's finished a law essay and hands it to a friend (law student, 2yrs ahead of her). Friend proceeds to almost decimate essay with various angry red circles, underlines, crosses and amendments. Cait, slightly disheartened, heads home and prepares for a long night working changes to the previously-thought-brilliant essay.

Exibit B: Cait (at 9.30pm), knowing that her prac book is due for submission tomorrow at 9.30am, decides to quickly flick through it to double check that all the work is done correctly, only to discover that many diagrams have been labelled incorrectly, in a hurry, or not at all. Panic. Calm down. Works on the book, finishing at one minute to midnight.

Well yes, maybe I shouldn't leave my editing to the last minute... I like to live on the edge *shrugs*

BUT you know what? I could never have done it without my late-night online presence. No it's not some robot or some random chat room thing, it's my boyfriend.

I stress, and what does he do? Makes himself available online, usually msn, so that I can rant, or throw questions at him to get his opinion/ Or say nothing at all.. Pretty much any time I ask, he's there.

I digress. It's like that thing that your parents say to you when you're little and you ask about love and friendship... That you can just be with someone, say nothing at all, and have complete comfort in silence, that when conversation runs out, it's not awkward. That person is your best mate. I have a couple of people I know like that, but online it's different. They don't 'talk' and you think they're busy... or away... then comes the question 'You still there?' or 'So how's life?' or something ridiculously mundane along those lines. When you get to the point where you know someone's online, conversation has tapered off, but they're still there, and the 'silence' is comforting as opposed to awkward? That's something special where, in this day and age where everything's instant communication, commonly online, an electronic 'silence' can comfort.

Noone else I chat to, electronically, can do that. It's only him that I trust he's there when I ask, maybe reading a book, but ready if I need to talk.

That's love.