-that “sudden indescribable jubilant feeling” when the screen name of your significant other appears on your buddy list in crisp bold font

-hearing the “door open” sound effect and scrolling up your buddy list (with wide eyes) to see if it is indeed your significant other

-placing your significant other as your top buddy on your buddy list

-making a special group for your significant other on your buddy list (i.e. “My Lover (1/1)”)

-dedicating the absolute foundation of your profile (after pressing the enter key 34 times) to the date in which you and your significant other started dating or your significant others’ initials

-staring at the screen name of your significant other, telling yourself that you Instant Messaged them first last time, so this time you must hold out and let them take initiative

-giving in and Instant Messaging your significant other even though you promised yourself you were going to let them make the first move this time

-“playing it cool” by giving your significant other a few minutes of online time before you Instant Message him/her so you do not give the impression of being a total desperado

-hovering the mouse arrow over your significant others’ screen name to see if an exceptional amount of minutes have passed, allowing you to give that initial “hey”

-Asking your significant other a serious question and tension building when “Yoursignificantother is typing…” appears on your Instant Message block

-regretting not Instant Messaging your significant other while they were signed on

 -watching your significant other’s screen name become light grey and italicized, knowing you shouldn’t have had so much pride

-that terrible feeling when your significant other abruptly signs off, leaving you wondering if they intentionally signed off without saying goodbye or got, as they say in the business, “kicked off”

-the feeling of immense relief when your significant other signs back on immediately clarifying that they did indeed get “kicked off”

-spending more than 5 minutes pondering an adequate away message, then telling yourself that you waited this long so you have to leave an above average one

-the disappointment coming across a “I am away from my computer right now.” while checking profiles

-checking the profile of the person whose away message is always “I am away from my computer right now.”, thinking that maybe this time they changed it

-the feeling of surprise when the person that always has “I am away from my computer right now.” as their away message has actually wrote something different

-checking your own away message after you have put one up to see how the final product appears

-the severe disappointment and bewilderment felt when you leave an away message up all day and come back to 0 missed messages

-telling everyone on your buddy list to “warn” a certain individual to see how high you can get their warning level

-wanting to go online on a weekend night, but believing it is too early and everyone online will think you are a loser

-killing time with other endeavors before it is acceptable to sign on

-the bothersome and curious feeling when receiving an “Anonymous Warn”

-having an Eminem song lyric in your profile

-relating your struggles to those of Tupac

-using your profile to let the 84 people on your buddy list know how much you dislike George W. Bush

-using a hyperlink named “My pictures” to deceive buddies that they are actually going to a site of your pictures, when actually you have lured them to a list of people who have been downright fooled

-feeling like a creeper while looking at online photographs of someone you know doesn’t have you on their buddy list

-knowing that any profile link that ends in “=yourscreenname” is going to get you caught out

-really wanting to click on a link that ends in “=yourscreenname”, but knowing the consequences are too high

-doing the “mouse arrow hover” over every hyperlink to see if it indeed ends in “=yourscreenname”

-having an un-cited movie quote as your away message and coming back to a handful of messages, letting you know that you cant get away with plagiarism. (i.e. MrProudyPants:  Dude, Dumb and Dumber….great movie)

-feeling uncomfortable and corny saying your screen name to someone in person

-explaining to a member of the opposite sex the meaning behind your screen name

-wondering if someone is really laughing out loud when they say “LOL”

-that person on your buddy list who has away messages that never, ever make sense to you. 

-asking someone if he/she thinks a particular away message is about you

-asking questions about your friend to a girl/guy he/she is interested in and promising you wont tell your friend, but in actuality he/she is sitting next to you telling you what to type

-using the bottom of your profile, after 34 enters, to let someone know that, “They have too much time on their hands” or advising them to “Get a life”.

-disregarding all rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation

-looking at someone’s shout outs in their profile and attempting to decipher which initials correspond to which person (i.e. “Shout outs to my biotches in 214B, love you girls!!!…bc, es, td, bk, ac, cm”

-taking a substantial amount of time contemplating who that last set of initials could possibly be

-making sure you put “back in (enter hometown here)…” when you have arrived home for college intercessions

-having your favorite team and favorite team’s record in your profile if they are doing exceptionally well this season

-using “shower” as your away message

-letting the online world know how much work you have to do and how much you procrastinated

-a profile countdown to spring break equipped with a snazzy picture of a palm tree

-soliciting your birthday in your away message

-simply putting a single smiley as your away message leaving the online world in wonder

-being skeptical that someone “stole” something from a previous profile of yours

-the proud feeling you receive when another buddy has confirmed your allegation of profile thievery on the accused

-properly citing a “stolen” quote from someone else and giving them proper credit (i.e. “The only thing a girl should chase is a shot” (5 enters) “stolen from Helga”

-having read “I want to be the guy he looks at, smiles, turns to his friends and says, ‘That’s her’” far too many times

-ThInKiNg ThAt ThIs Is A cReAtIvE sCrEeN nAmE fOrMaT

-being able to follow the status of a romantic relationship simply by checking away messages

-falsely portraying that you are “living life to the fullest”

-falsely portraying that you don’t give a damn what people think of you

-letting everyone know that you wouldn’t be anywhere without your girls

-how fast you have the “right click, left click, Get Buddy Info, slightly move downward” maneuver down to a science

-knowing that inspiration is only a profile away

-finding that song lyric that fits your angry mood so perfectly that it must be in your profile

-wondering if that angry away message is due to you and your past shenanigans

-creating a screen name which appears to be an already existing one of a buddy, but the 1(one) in their screen name is actually a lowercase L(l) in the one you have so cunningly produced

-terribly misspelling words so everyone knows just how drunk you are (i.e. BlOnDiEgUrlthatjusthad3beers: oh mayca ghosh isam so wasteaccad)

-that buddy that always finds it necessary to critique your spelling

-coming to senses with reality and finally comprehending that everyone you are talking to on the internet isn’t actually a 21/f/CA or a 21/m/FL