Internet Confidence

"OMFG WTF is wrong with this game!!!!" he smashed the keys as he ranted into the chat pane. He gnashed his teeth in anger until he felt a cold liquid touch his arm. Quickly withdrawing the keyboard from the table, he ran for a towel to clean up the Coke. "Aww crap!" he said aloud, as the Coke started dripping onto the carpet.

He just laid the towel on the floor and pressed it into the carpet where the Coke had splattered. He kept pressure on it with his foot as he updated his friends on the chat that he just spilled his Coke. He exaggerated a bit as to the extent of the spill, which received a healthy response of "Lolz" from the others in the chat. "F this game too man," he continued, gaining confidence in his control of the chat.

He had always been on a secondary topic of chat than the main, and even though they were obviously reading what he wrote, he never knew if they really were. With the few responses he got he felt that people would know him if they saw him logged on another day, but he had never made sure of it. All of the active chatters in the room had finally responded to something he had said. His topic was finally the main area of chat. He had never felt included in the veteran community of the chat with his relatively new account.

His ID number was in the Millions, and respect was garnered by how low your number was. But he had them now, maybe he could make his mark. "Yeah I had trouble with that game too man," said one of the chatters. He was getting increasingly excited, trying to keep the center of attention on himself, trying to get himself recognized, to get himself mentioned. What better way to do that than contradict what he had said earlier to make it look like he was above the guy who had agreed with him. "I don't know, Its really not that hard I was just unlucky a couple of times." "Yeah thats what I thought too," said another chatter indicating that his tactic had paid off, "It was easy but sometimes it just screws you."

Wanting to keep his streak in memory, he requested some friends from among the chatters and said he had to go. They all said goodbye and he was on top of the world. "Yes!" he said just to express his feeling to no one in particular, giving a half baked jump trying not to be too proud of his accomplishment. Then he came back down funny on his ankle, and fell backwards half laughing at his stupidity and half grunting in pain. Sitting down holding his ankle he remembered the Coke he should have picked up five minutes ago. It was already all sticky and he would have to give the whole desk and carpet a scrub. But it was a fair trade for a few Vets in the friends list.