[rayiner]

As a counter to the author's own romantic example: my wife and I probably would never have gotten together without modern social networking. When my wife and I met, she was living in Oregon and I was living in Chicago. We met while she was in town to interview at the law school I was attending. She was in professional mode and I was a stressed out first year student, and we never would have pursued a relationship in the days before gchat. But instant messaging is a very unique medium. The lack of visual feedback tends to encourage frank conversations, and the "who else is up at this hour?" aspect tends to encourage reaching out to people you wouldn't necessarily call up on the phone. By the time of our "first date" months later, we had met each other exactly twice but already knew a tremendous amount about each other.