Now they think they've really upset you. Then they're thinking, jeez, it's just a book. What's your fucking problem? Now there's a surreal rift between you, and it all could have been avoided if the Skype emojis could get a goddamn grip on themselves and display even the most remote form of subtlety. It's almost enough to make you yearn for the days of face-to-face communication, but let's be serious, not really. If I wanted that, I would have clicked the video button.

You won't know any of this until it happens to you (or you read my column, so you're welcome, angel babies). You'll just be minding your own business, rocking mildly out with the Dave Matthews Band, probably fall over in your chair and kick the power button because you're such a stereotype, and discover with horror that you've been betrayed.

You'll never feel secure again. You'll make sure to play a Nirvana song before you turn it off, and if you ever get blue-screened, your only options are to never turn your computer back on because you never got around to resetting the defaults or accept that you've been caught pants-down in the middle of a Hanson song. Not even "MMMBop" -- I'm talking a deep album cut. I don't know about you, but I do not have the hipster cred to pull that off.

But times have changed and, for a normal person, it's probably nice to know via the little ellipsis bubble that the other person is talking. For the less well-adjusted among us, though, it's a little bubble of anxiety. "Oh god, why are they typing for so long? Is it a 104-point list of reasons they hate me?" God forbid they start typing and then never say anything. "What were they going to say? Was it an ill-advised declaration of love? Or hate? Probably hate."

Possibly the only worse thing they could do, and did, was add the little checkmarks that show that the recipient has seen your message. Again, this is probably a wonderful convenience for normal people. "OK, Gary has seen my message, so I know I don't need to send it again," they probably say in their totally not obsessive voice. "He's just busy golfing and he'll get back to me when he's done." (Normal people have friends named Gary who golf, right?)

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Gary will golf forever. Because Gary fucking hates you too.

For an anxiety-prone person, though, it creates many more problems than it solves. If I've sent you a message and I can see that you've seen it and you're not responding, I am 100 percent certain you are intentionally ignoring me because you hate me. Why? What did I do? Is this about my Dobby tears? Why didn't you just tell me that it made you uncomfortable? I can change!

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Nope, I lied. Weeping forever now.

On the other hand, if you send me a message about something I really can't deal with right now, I have to hope that's apparent from the snippet I can see before I click on it. Otherwise, I know that you know that I've seen it, and I don't want you to think that I hate you. Now I have to think of a response right goddamn now or you are going to hate me. Instant messaging creates hate, is what I'm saying.

Bless its little no-heart, Twitter is always a step behind everyone else. Sometimes that's great. For example, you can still see all of your followees' tweets, in chronological order, the way God intended, as expressly detailed in the Old Testament.

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"It's right here, right after Moses ramped that school bus."

Sometimes, though, it's painfully obvious how outdated the platform is. On every other social media platform, when you enter a link or upload a picture, it shows you a preview of your post so you can be sure the thumbnail doesn't look like a 4chan prank. But Twitter just sits there smiling like an idiot who doesn't know his fly is down, then reaches out and pulls down yours.

Every tweet is sent blindly into the void, and if it doesn't turn out right, tough shit, because -- again, unlike every other social media platform -- you can't edit it. You better be ready to commit to that tweet unless you want to delete and start all over again. It's kind of exciting, like filling out a crossword in ink while standing in a thunderstorm.

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But with a 50 percent higher chance of accidentally becoming a racist.

Sure, maybe it's not a big deal to someone who isn't obsessive about typos and the way a photo looks when you post it, and to whom favorites and retweets aren't essential to their self-esteem. I am not that kind of person. I once deleted and reposted a tweet three times just to make a joke about dildos. I remember it like it was yesterday: It was a response to a corporate account, and it included a link and a photo. First, the link screwed up the photo, then the photo posted weirdly because of how Twitter crops photos the worst possible way. Then? Fucking typo. All while racing to fix it before anyone retweets, because once that happens, game over, man. You can't waste a retweet. I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible too.