What?!? How can you say you love me? You've never even met me! You don't know that I still live with my mother. You don't know I'm a slob and I haven't cleaned my bathroom in a month. You don't know about how I sometimes need to be away from people for days at a time, just to clear my head.

You think I'm charming. You think I'm sweet. You think I'm everything you've never seen a guy before. Well, you haven't seen me. I like having you around to talk with. I can be funny when I'm talking to you. I can be clever and witty and real and artistic and all those things I fail at in real life. I made you cry when I told you about my ex-girlfriend. You felt for me. Why? I'm not real.

I could be some weirdo kid just getting my jollies by jerking around with a nice girl's emotions. I might be married. I might be lying. You don't know me. You can't know me. This is the internet. I'm a persona. I'm a nickname.

You ... oh my god, you love me.
I'm charming.

I know this. My friends online know this. My friends in real life seem to be skeptical, though.

Ok, I'm also bratty. Both my online and my real life friends and acquaintances agree on that one.

But really, it is very easy to be charming over the internet. When you're just words on a screen and sometimes a picture, nobody can see the piles of dirty dishes in your sink. They don't know about the teeth-cleaning with a safety pin kept stuck in the mousepad habit. It can never be known that I have the irrational and hard to resist urge to tickle people that I like.

All they know is that I like to hug people for random reasons. They know I usually have a cheerful attitude, but that's because they can't hear me cursing my brother's temper.

All sins can be forgiven by the separation of an internet connection.

It's easy to be charming in text,
moving from one person to the next.
I'll give you all of my attention
but I may forget to mention
that I cannot distinguish you from the rest.

It's easy to be charming online
because with that few seconds of time
I'll think of the perfect reply
and though you might think it a lie,
you'll still believe me to be charming and kind.

It's harder to be charming in reality
because although it's the very same mentality,
I will begin to stutter and stumble
and I will mutter and mumble
and shatter your perfect image of me.

It's easy to be charming on the internet
but it is also just as easy to simply forget
that although the web can mimic the truth
and I offer up my emotions as proof
the fact is that we've never met.

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