“Youcan see all of this online. But that's cheating. No computer programcan compare to the physical experience. It's like learning how toplay a virtual sports game. You're not really playing anything,against anyone. You're just a spectator. People are becomingspectators of their own lives instead of living them. But the best partis getting in the game. That's when it's all worth it.”

“Closure. That's probably the most unrealistic word in the English vocabulary. It's up there with heartbreak, pain, loss, and abandonment, all these things that you're supposed to get over and mend and heal but really, do you ever get over those moments?”

“Sometimes, online, I feel like we're not really people. We're more like characters." I felt him studying me while I said this. "It's like living inside a reality show all the time. We edit out the scenes so we can appear a certain way. It makes me wonder if I really know anybody.”

“How am I?"[...]"Sometimes it's a rush, like skydiving and other times it's just a smooth ride, like floating in the middle of a calm lake. It's like standing next to a hot fire that's shooting sparks, or walking on the sun and then rolling in the snow. It's like plate tectonics and hailstorms and lighting and earthquakes and hurricane-force winds all happening at once but then everything suddenly stops moving and your mind draws a blank and everything's really peaceful. It's like your mind explodes and all that's left inside your body is heat.”

“You were brought up to think love and family are about protection. Like you need to hold people close in order to care about them. But that's just living inside a bubble. It's control. I was brought up to think love is trusting people enough to let them go.”

“I'm used to the security of living behind my online profiles and the clip art advertisdements I create to define me. I can be whoever I want to be in that world. I can be funny, deep, pensive, eccentric. I can be the best version of myself. I can make all the right decisions. I can delete my flaws by pressing a button. In the real world anything can happen. It's like stepping onto an icy surface--you have to adjust your footing or you'll slip and fall. Your movements become rigid and unsure because behind all the fancy gadgets and all that digital armor, you realize you're just flesh and bones.”

“Live a little," she tells me. "You're never going to experience anything if you wait around for perfect conditions.”