(This is a story I wrote for an English course about a month and a half ago. I just wanted some feedback from people about it so consider this a request for a critique if you feel the need or desire to, otherwise enjoy.)
[CENTER]Multimedia[/CENTER]
He’d met her only a week before hand. Jason had been hurt before in long distance relationships so he was nervous about falling quickly for her, as was his tendency. They had agreed to talk online at 6:30, giving each of them time enough to have dinner.
Jason woke his computer up from stand-by, cued up a playlist of music from his favorite bands, and loaded his instant messaging client. Was she online? Not yet.
Jason breathed a quick sigh of relief. He was nervous about all of this. He and Liz hadn't even spoken on the phone yet, with each having a reason to not move to that stage yet. His reason was his fear of moving too fast, and her reason was that her parents had watched Dateline almost too much throughout the years and had ingrained in her a fear of meeting men online.
Ding! A notification suddenly popped up while he was browsing the web. CutieLIZ86 has signed on, the window read. Jason was listening to the music from his computer over his earbuds, so the alert sound was almost deafening to him. “Oh, Liz,” he said aloud, suddenly feeling foolish for talking to himself despite the fact that he was alone at his family's house.
CutieLIZ86: Hey there stud
LBCgeek3to10: Hi, you're right on time.
CutieLIZ86: I am SOO glad to see you online.
She proceeded to ask him a series of questions about his computer set-up, including if he had a microphone. He told her that he did. Yet it seem to take a little bit too long for him to take her questions as the prompts that they were to start up a voice chat with her. He clicked through the dialog boxes that were necessary to start a voice chat.
“Wow, you know I’ve been waiting to talk to you for sometime; I’m so glad we’re finally doing this,” he said.
CutieLiz86:I don’t have a mic though.
I just wanted to hear your voice.
“Well, we can make this work, as awkward as it might be,” he reassured her. In any relationship Jason had been in, he’d always made every effort he could to accommodate the wishes of his would-be girlfriends, even to the point of his detriment. He had felt like he'd spent years trying to figure out just why he bent to the will of the fairer sex so easily. He tried to fight the urge he always had to do whatever a woman's voice asked of him. It seemed as if any woman on earth asking something of him was simply his Kryptonite. And Jason knew, no matter how uncomfortable this chat might make him, he would give into her every desire. “So are you going to just type in response to everything I say?”
CuttieLiz86: That was my plan.
“Works for me, I guess. You know, I was thinking about it today and there’s a lot that I don’t know about you that I would really like to find out.”
CutieLiz86: like what?
“Well, so far when you and I have talked all that we’ve talked about has been our taste in music and TV shows, and while I’m ecstatic to hear that you also love watching Scrubs just as much as I do and I'm slightly disappointed in this further evidence that no one else on the planet has heard of the bands I like, I want to get to know the deeper Liz.”
CutieLiz86: So you want to know the emotional baggage I’m bringing to the table?
“Well not specifically, if its something you feel like talking about, I’ll be more than willing to be here to listen … err, read, I guess. I just wanna know more of your life story, I wanna know about your plans. Where do you see yourself in five years? How you see yourself growing old? Those are the types of things I want to find out.” Jason waited for a reply.
And he waited more.
The indicator in the corner of the window no longer showed that she was typing, and this made Jason worry. Suddenly before he had a chance to ask what was wrong, the voice chat was disconnected. “What did I say wrong?” he said to himself. “What did I do?”
Seemingly out of the blue, his phone started to play the theme song from Futurama. The display on his phone showed a number he didn’t recognize, yet having taken math back in elementary school, he was not lacking of the ability to put two and two together. He stopped the music he had been listening to on his computer, took off his head phones and answered his cellphone.
“Hello?” Jason said, hesitantly.
“Hi,” a woman’s voice responded. It was the loveliest sounding voice he had ever heard.
[CENTER]Multimedia[/CENTER]
He’d met her only a week before hand. Jason had been hurt before in long distance relationships so he was nervous about falling quickly for her, as was his tendency. They had agreed to talk online at 6:30, giving each of them time enough to have dinner.
Jason woke his computer up from stand-by, cued up a playlist of music from his favorite bands, and loaded his instant messaging client. Was she online? Not yet.
Jason breathed a quick sigh of relief. He was nervous about all of this. He and Liz hadn't even spoken on the phone yet, with each having a reason to not move to that stage yet. His reason was his fear of moving too fast, and her reason was that her parents had watched Dateline almost too much throughout the years and had ingrained in her a fear of meeting men online.
Ding! A notification suddenly popped up while he was browsing the web. CutieLIZ86 has signed on, the window read. Jason was listening to the music from his computer over his earbuds, so the alert sound was almost deafening to him. “Oh, Liz,” he said aloud, suddenly feeling foolish for talking to himself despite the fact that he was alone at his family's house.
CutieLIZ86: Hey there stud
LBCgeek3to10: Hi, you're right on time.
CutieLIZ86: I am SOO glad to see you online.
She proceeded to ask him a series of questions about his computer set-up, including if he had a microphone. He told her that he did. Yet it seem to take a little bit too long for him to take her questions as the prompts that they were to start up a voice chat with her. He clicked through the dialog boxes that were necessary to start a voice chat.
“Wow, you know I’ve been waiting to talk to you for sometime; I’m so glad we’re finally doing this,” he said.
CutieLiz86:I don’t have a mic though.
I just wanted to hear your voice.“Well, we can make this work, as awkward as it might be,” he reassured her. In any relationship Jason had been in, he’d always made every effort he could to accommodate the wishes of his would-be girlfriends, even to the point of his detriment. He had felt like he'd spent years trying to figure out just why he bent to the will of the fairer sex so easily. He tried to fight the urge he always had to do whatever a woman's voice asked of him. It seemed as if any woman on earth asking something of him was simply his Kryptonite. And Jason knew, no matter how uncomfortable this chat might make him, he would give into her every desire. “So are you going to just type in response to everything I say?”
CuttieLiz86: That was my plan.
“Works for me, I guess. You know, I was thinking about it today and there’s a lot that I don’t know about you that I would really like to find out.”
CutieLiz86: like what?
“Well, so far when you and I have talked all that we’ve talked about has been our taste in music and TV shows, and while I’m ecstatic to hear that you also love watching Scrubs just as much as I do and I'm slightly disappointed in this further evidence that no one else on the planet has heard of the bands I like, I want to get to know the deeper Liz.”
CutieLiz86: So you want to know the emotional baggage I’m bringing to the table?
“Well not specifically, if its something you feel like talking about, I’ll be more than willing to be here to listen … err, read, I guess. I just wanna know more of your life story, I wanna know about your plans. Where do you see yourself in five years? How you see yourself growing old? Those are the types of things I want to find out.” Jason waited for a reply.
And he waited more.
The indicator in the corner of the window no longer showed that she was typing, and this made Jason worry. Suddenly before he had a chance to ask what was wrong, the voice chat was disconnected. “What did I say wrong?” he said to himself. “What did I do?”
Seemingly out of the blue, his phone started to play the theme song from Futurama. The display on his phone showed a number he didn’t recognize, yet having taken math back in elementary school, he was not lacking of the ability to put two and two together. He stopped the music he had been listening to on his computer, took off his head phones and answered his cellphone.
“Hello?” Jason said, hesitantly.
“Hi,” a woman’s voice responded. It was the loveliest sounding voice he had ever heard.
"It sounds like an epidemic."
"Look, I don't know what that means. But it happens all the time." - Penny Arcade
Last.fm
"Look, I don't know what that means. But it happens all the time." - Penny Arcade
Last.fm
