(no subject)

[desh]

I used to have an alternate AIM screenname. Fewer than a dozen people knew it. I'd sign onto it when I was emotional enough about something that I couldn't deal with talking to my whole buddy list on my regular name. This seems to imply:

• IM was my main form of realtime communication with friends
  
• I had a lot of realtime communication with friends compared to what I have now (which is probably less communication overall, and more of it via asynchronous stuff like LJ and facebook and email)
  
• When I IMed, I IMed so much that my main buddy list could be overwhelming, whereas now getting an IM from more than 1 or 2 people an evening, or from someone other than the 5ish people I talk to the most, is unusual
  
• I frequently felt emotional enough that I needed to alter my behavior
  
• My friends were online enough, and had predictable enough schedules, that there were a bunch of people who I could reasonably expect to find online at particular times
  
• I talked about how I was feeling with my friends, complaining about people and discussing responses to shared experiences

I really don't remember experiencing any of those too well. I certainly can't fathom my life being like that now; it's changed so much. But parts of it seem kind of nice, and it might be nice to have some of those things back on occasion.