my new pen pal

I have two Instant Messenger accounts -- one for home and one for work. Thus far, the Dating Prospect and I have blabbed strictly over the work account. Over the weekend I updated the Buddy List at home and added her name. I should mention that I totally guessed what her screenname was since I was too lazy to log off/log in to the work account to verify it. But I thought I remembered it and proceeded to add it to my group of online pals.

Later in the day, that screenname appeared online so I pinged it and chatted with the person on the other end. I opened the conversation with a playful, "Guess who?" Without hesitation, I received a reply: "Emmy Rossum." I racked my brain to see if we had an inside joke going about the star of The Phantom of the Opera but nothing rang a bell. At a loss, I offered a weak, "Ha ha! How did you know?"

I was attempting to keep it light and flirty but the subsequent responses seemed hesitant and were dry as a bone. I decided that I was bothering her and dejectedly said, "Well, I just wanted to pop in and say hey... so hey." I was SO ready to log off and pout.

Then came the response: "Who is this?!" My heart broke a little. My two screennames are pretty similar in format so I immediately became concerned that she didn't recognize my last name. I didn't use all caps or italics to convey my emotions but my "It's Curly!" response had a definite tone of exasperation to it.

Her reply: "Oh hi"

No exclamation point. No punctuation at all. My temperature started to rise. I decided to try once more with the intention of packing it in if the uncharacteristic aloofness continued.

Yours Truly: Are you working?

Her: No, I'm helping out with the show

[My Internal Dialogue (MID): What the fuck? She didn't tell me she was working on a show. And why did she say that like I'm supposed to know? Maybe it has something do with work. Hmmm... she works in PR so maybe it's a client.]

Yours Truly: What show?

Her: Into the Woods

[MID: Um, hello?!?! We talked about theater on our first date as well as my love of Stephen Sondheim. Why didn't she mention she was doing one of my favorite musicals ever? She clearly doesn't listen to a word I say!]

Yours Truly: Interesting. Where is that being performed?

Her: Suffern

[MID: Huh? I don't get it. Why is she working on an amateur theater production upstate? What the h--?]

Yours Truly: Um, this isn't [Dating Prospect's name], is it?

Yup, I spent a good 10-15 minutes chatting with a suburban high schooler named Jordan while simultaneously prepping for a big ol' kiss-off. I'm REALLY scary when I'm exhausted.