My IM vice reemerges

I haven't discussed instant messaging in awhile. Back at the very beginning, before I even received my copy of the Rules for Online Dating, I noted that IMing wasn't very rules-y and hinted that I was going to sign off of it for the duration. I haven't really followed up on that, and it would appear that it is now time to do so.

As expected, the Rules generally frown on the practice of instant messaging. Rule #8 of the Online Dating rules is that you should block yourself from it altogether - though this is specifically in the context of dating websites. The Rules don't seem to account for general IM programs such as AIM and gchat. The modified Rules located in the appendix to the Online Dating volume have some guidance for IMing if you absolutely MUST, including counting to 60 before responding, and, of course, being light, breezy, and demure in your responses.

Interestingly, the Rules do allow you to go meet people in "chat rooms" as long as you wait for them to message you, in a chapter that seems a little too AOL-era to be relevant. I may go try to find a chat room at some point just to play around with this Rule - although I really don't know where I would go for that. The last time I joined an actual chat room was I believe on the IRC, in 1998.

(Note that I can't do any Rules quoting right now because I did not pack my Rules on this business trip, but the basic idea is that it's too spontaneous, too available. Maybe I'll go back and edit this post when I get home so that I can be more precise.)

Now, on to applying this to myself. It is fair to say that I have been an avid IM-er since the practice existed. My family was on Prodigy when I was 11, and I dabbled in the bulletin boards (yes, there were sexual predators on the Internet before the Internet existed). A year or two later, a friend and I dialed into each other's computers and typed to each other on a DOS interface, and could not get over how amazing it was. The same friend and I used to play around on AOL chat rooms and screwed with people. I went on BBSs throughout high school, using Legend of the Red Dragon as an alternate social life. In college, I used ICQ, then AIM, basically constantly. After college I lived abroad and used Trillian, which facilitated communications through all major chat programs then existing.

I think it is also fair to say that instant messaging has played a significant role in many of my relationships and is in fact responsible for my ill-fated marriage, and possibly its early demise.

Back one summer in college, I found out the AIM screenname of my co-worker crush and added him to my list just to watch him, never messaging. I found out he liked me too when I asked to check my email on his computer at a gathering and saw my own screenname on his list.

Another college relationship, this one long-distance, relied on IM to keep it going. One night when he wasn't online I became suspicious, freaked out, and started calling his dorm phone over and over until he answered. The next day I drove to visit him and he told me he'd cheated on me.

A little later I was lonely living abroad, not having much of a social life there due to factors beyond my control. I leaned on my good friend who I later married - spending my entire workday (his entire night!) talking to him online. After months of this, he told me he couldn't talk to me anymore unless I agreed to date him when I returned to the country. I had not felt that way about him and told him no, then spent a month miserable because my main personal contact had been cut off from me. I resumed communication with him by agreeing to go on a date with him when I got back. That coerced date, for reasons I need not explain here, led to our marriage. I later realized things weren't working out when I started having feelings for a guy I met in law school, which I indulged through IM conversations.

At various intervals throughout this period of time, I'd generally initiate IM conversations with ex boyfriends whenever I felt like getting male attention.

I walk through my dubious IM-relationship-history not to pour out all my e-drama, but to set a foundation for conquering one of my biggest Rules weaknesses. IM is instant gratification, obtained easily and without much effort. And if IM is chocolate cake, I am a grotesquely obese person huffing and puffing to get up a flight of stairs.

Back to my six months of Rules. What modifications did I actually make to my instant messaging behavior? Well, I stopped using facebook chat altogether, and I have not relented once. Nor I have I looked back at all.

As for gchat, that's a little more of an addiction and not just when it comes to guys. My brain likes to multitask, and I work better when I feel like I'm not completely isolated from the world. There are two people I gchat every day, both girls, and this particular indulgence is not something I felt like I needed to let go of. Solution? First, I removed all potential guys from my "show" list (did not block them, just removed them so that I can't see when they're online). Second, I went invisible myself, so I can just message the two girls I like talking to.

This strategy has been mostly effective until recently. The only shortfall I had was my 2nd most recent ex, who knows I'm invisible because I pulled this sometimes pre-Rules, and chats me. OK, I guess I was bad at the beginning with him because I showed him the pictures of myself I posted to the AO, but that was the worst of it. But lately, I have started falling off the IM wagon. I have initiated IM conversations with this guy when invisible. I have initiated conversations with a previous ex (4th most recent, I think) that approach flirtation.

OK, the ex thing sucks and I clearly need to stop it in the spirit of the Rules, but is not terribly dangerous to my Rules experiment IRL because both exes are far away. But that's not all.

I have made myself "visible" a couple of times to chat with a new guy friend that I am only 80% sure is just a friend. He and I had IMed a couple of times before the experiment so there was some precedent for the conversations. I don't feel chemistry with him, but I have grown to like him a great deal, and am definitely establishing some kind of a bond with him. The first few times I made myself visible in order to bait him into chatting me, which he usually did. Then I stopped caring whether he IMed me first, and just signed on and IMed him when I want to. I actually asked him to go to a movie with me spontaneously one weeknight (as in, "I want to see the 7 PM show of X, let's go") and he did it. And then we went to dinner at a sit-down place afterwards.

And since I've been on the business trip, I've been just horrible about IMing. I miss the life I was building in Atlanta. I've started to feel insecure about having just established myself on the Jewish dating scene and then ripping myself away from it for two weeks and two weekends. I worry that I'll have to start all over when I get back, that the guys who had planted seeds of interest will forget about me, that I'll lose the great progress I'd made toward having a social circle in the Jewish community.

A CUAO is supposed to brush these thoughts aside. There will always be other men. If these men forget about me they never liked me enough to begin with. When I fly into town, jetsetter that I am, I will breeze into any room and light it up. And if nobody notices me, their loss.

But I am not quite in true CUAO form yet. And the result of that is back to old habits, meaning a total lapse on IM, as to ex boyfriends but most relevantly as to my new male friend.

I suppose this would not be a problem if we were truly just friends, but it is more complicated than that. I wonder if there might be interest on his end, though he's never made any overt moves in that direction. A couple of people have suggested that we date, or that something's already going on between us. Clearly I have thought about that possibility more than once. I admit that I have wished that there were more chemistry because I enjoy his company so much. I have even thought that I might be moving towards liking him that way a couple of times. I unabashedly ask him to hang out, on IM and not. I text him and respond to his texts.

After a particularly flirtatious IM conversation, I let my friend read it over. She informed me in no uncertain terms that I was leading him on. This is not something a Rules Girl would do.

So first of all, I think it's time to get my virtual self into shape. Lay off the IM. If I cannot lay off the IM, sign on infrequently and allow guys to IM me, but do not IM them. Apply the Rules of IMing in terms of my response time and length.

Lastly, use the rest of this trip to make some kind of a decision on my guy friend. If he is just a friend, I must treat him as such and quit flirting. If he might be more, I need to start Rulesing him.