hey baby. what's your screen name?

It has just occurred to me that in modern day flirting and dating rituals, no one cares about phone numbers anymore. I mean, it's really not that far-fetched for a guy to walk up to you at a bar and say "Hey baby, what's your screen name? Maybe I can IM you sometime." We then scribble down undiscernable characters on napkins, noting when we mean 1 instead of L, or zero instead of o, saying "It's a capital P. It's case-sensitive," and go home to wait for a message.

The IM is a sort of middle ground between just meeting and making the first call. It's relatively low-risk, informal, and easy. It's kind of like an e-version of getting coffee. I mean, there's none of that nervousness surrounding the first phone call. No sweaty palms, no rehearsed conversations testing our vocal aloofness. Just a quick little "R U there?" and voila, UR on UR way. You can even send those silly little kissy smiley faces for added value.

So, you know, don't knock it. There's something to this whole pseudo-flirty impersonal IM thing. I mean, you can still give out a fake if you don't like someone, but you don't even have to! You can just block them off your list (and hope they aren't psychotic and have 50 other names by which to stalk you). Really, this is perfect. And who knows, if things go well, at the end of the chat you can turn it up a notch and give them your email address.