There was a time in my life where I would be at my computer talking to friends—ones that I never met, ones that I had met through community boards. I would do this all evening…all day on the weekend.

Slowly in the past 6 years, habits changed. I started doing “real stuff” during evenings and weekends. Then there comes a rare day where suddenly the day is open. I reminiscence about the long conversations I would have. The impulsive conference phone call. Granted, back then, many of us were in college—almost handcuffed to our rooms due to lack of money and “studying”.

And now I sit through my evenings—it is silent. I haven’t received an email for more than 10 hours. I spoke out to the empty audience—not once, not twice, more than thrice…out of habit through twitter, facebook and then here. There isn’t anybody responding, but I am ok with that. But I miss the many facets of personalities that I would encounter.

It’s not that I can’t im the many people I have on my list. There’s more than 10 online right now. But it will be short conversations—how are you? It may last 5 minutes, 10 minutes…lucky if it’s more. And then we would naturally retreat back to our former behavior. It’s because we have gotten older. But I miss you—that you—of the you of those times that we can’t return to easily.