iLaugh.com

Instant Messaging (IM) has been around for quite a while now and its popularity has got the panties of phone companies in a bunch. Ever since the golden days of ICQ, youngsters have been using their computers to communicate with each other rather than suffer the hardships of picking up a telephone or (shudder) walking over to someone’s house and visiting them in person.

Even adults in the workplace are now guilty of the same crime of laziness. Who among us has never sent an email to the person sitting next to them in the office or messaged neighbor A to point out the vicious B.O. of neighbor B? Matter of fact, I am currently in a 4-way MSN conversation with 3 coworkers (all sitting inches away from me) discussing whether or not we should take a foosball break.

IM can be a great tool of communication but the limitations of text without tone can lead to problems. I once called a girl a “lying, manipulative whore” and she somehow missed the fact that I was chuckling as I typed it. The result was not pretty. But neither was the girl so whatever.

Contrastingly, sometimes you really do care how the person on the other end of the Internet interprets what you’re saying. It is in times like these that your likelihood to make an ass of yourself is increased no less than tenfold. Here are just a couple of brief examples of how such a thing may occur:

• Let’s say you were at a party and met someone, but the only means of continuing communication was his/her IM address. This scenario puts incredible strain on your left ring finger and will, indubitably, cause a slight leftward shift changing the intended “gimmie a sec” to the painfully awkward “gimmie a sex.” Now, not only have you inadvertently opened the drafty window called “I’m-a-shallow-asshole-who’s-only-interested-in-sex” (yes, windows have names. Long ones), but you have also led this virtual stranger to believe you have an unusual Borat-esque dialect.

• Your boss has an assignment for you and is too busy to walk over to your desk to explain, so she (your boss is a woman) tells you over IM. In your haste to alleviate a little of her stress and appear to be a sharp and enthusiastic employee, you pull out the snappiest response you can muster: “Got it!” However, given said haste and given that you are attempting NOT to make a fool of yourself, your thumb jumps the typing gun a character too early and you, with every intended ounce of conviction, type: “Go tit!” Now, had your boss been a male he would’ve understood entirely and probably responded with his own words of encouragement and praise for one of the greatest parts of the female anatomy. But your boss is female. And she’s pressing charges.

How can you avoid these things, you ask? The only way I can think of would be to start using your diaphragm and push some actual words out through your mouth as opposed to your fingertips. But that’s not going to happen, now is it? This is 2007! The only “Real World” any of us are going to be experiencing is on MTV.

Now back to that foosball conversation…