lying in the internet age

"by and by now we'll get over / the things we've done and the things we've said / but not just now when i can't remember / exactly what it was i thought we had / 'cause i waited so long and i came so far / to find out you're not always who you say you are". -- walter becker

"there's a star / in the book of liars / by your name"

in the old days, my old friend's strategy of "deny, deny, deny" would hold water suprisingly long. "you're mistaken". "it wasn't how it looked". "i swear". honestly, how could anyone know? but in the internet age, there are no end to the corroborations and the refutations that swirl about the ether, to add unintended dimensions to everything we say, and everything we do. how old are you, really? (ussearch.com knows, even if anywho can't find your phone number). where do you go online, and who do you talk to? (don't forget to eat all your cookies before going to bed). "what is it that was really meant when you said..."

the complexity lies in that there's generally always more than one person watching online. if it were only a case of constructing only one carefully prepared facade for our entire electronic lives, our very own personal and unique electronic potemkin village as it were, we would likely do ok, since fantasy worlds come naturally to most people. but just when we think we have all the angles and stories straightened, something and somebody else from the real world will inevitably creep in to knock us off our high honesty horse. (and, let's face it, people rarely have but only one side, in any context...)

so how do we remain reconciled? methinks the internet is providing the impetus for there being only ONE possible love to our lives. it's not a question of emotion anymore, it's a question of the impossibility of being able to maintain any sort of duality without being caught in the yahoo web. sooner or later, the second and subsequent interests in our lives will weigh in, be discovered, or fester until they demand attention. and, let's further face that there's never any room for another in our own darkest heart of hearts-- for all of our own inner reptiles, it's always only ever on about ME--so why should it be different for anybody else?

i love you.

i think it can only ever mean one thing, if we are to be whole.