YOU KNOW YOU'RE ONLINE TOO MUCH IF:
subtitled: why I don't need a real life
africamuse's own list
Okay...all these things have either happened to me or to people really close to me, lol
You start wishing that your husband would come home late from work - more time on the 'net
You find yourself regularly using expressions online that you hardly EVER use irl - like "wow!"
You find yourself using the abovementioned expressions more and more irl
You suffer from "many clocks syndrome" - one for each time zone occupied by close online friends
Contrary to your initial intentions, you spend hardly any time searching for information on pertinent topics. After all, this wastes serious "chat", "page" and "mail" time
You can't wait to go on holiday, in the hope that the time away from your computer will reduce your phone bill
Three hours after arriving at your holiday destination, you yearn to return to home, drudgery...and the puter!
A family member e-mails you to go offline, so they can phone you to tell you an uncle has died
You get the giggles each time someone ICQ honks you, because you've loaded an online friend's son's chicken imitation as the honk wav
You consider the merits of taking up smoking after spotting a URL on the base of a colleague's pack of cigarettes
Despite being a person who functions best on nine hours sleep a night, you stay online till midnight and then get up at 5:00 am to say good morning (good night?) to all your friends before work
You chat to an online friend from a different time zone who signs off, goes to bed, comes back online - and you're STILL ONLINE
You progress from the postal system (snail mail) to e-mail, and then you discover ICQ (quail mail?) and become too impatient even for e-mails
Your nephew is upset and you have an overwhelming inclination to say ":gives S a big hug" (or a wooden horse)
You spend a third of your take-home salary on your ISP and phone bill
You consider emigrating - just to get away from the metered phone call system
Your family doesn't even TRY to phone you anymore
You completely stop watching TV
You spend the very little time you have offline composing lists of questions for Yahoo! Chat's TRIV room
You think your sitting room looks empty because it doesn't have a "clueless couch"
When you make yourself leave the computer to socialise with "real" people, you bore them silly with stories about what you did/saw/heard/found on the 'net
It doesn't seem at all strange to you that you pick up tones of voice, volume, etc....all through the way people type
You can recognise your online friends even when they use different screen names
You scribble "lol" in the margins of memos, minutes, and documents you have been asked to proofread
Although you yourself thought this a little silly when you started chatting, you now find yourself unable to have an online conversation without punctuating it with :) and :(
You start using phrases like "by the way" and "be right back" a LOT
You have permanent backache from slouching over the computer
You lie awake at night, worrying about the problems your online friends are having
You dial a wrong number and curse yourself for your "frikkin typos"
You have to go into the ICU at the hospital for a heart condition, and you stop to email family and friends to tell them where you are and not to worry
LINKS ON THIS THEME
And now it's ICQ...
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all original material (text, graphics, photographs and programming) © 1997-2000
Sally Smith
http://geocities.datacellar.net/africamuse