AIM

AIM is great, it allows for mostly not-awkward conversation, in that you do not expect the other person to always be there, and you have plenty of time to think about your responses without the face-to-face or phone pressure to respond immediately.

But there are some times where it gets awkward. Like when you say something, then the other person is typing, and you get that little thingy saying they are typing. That thingy then goes away, and seems like its flickering, and your anticipation is growing. This tends to end in one of two ways: a block of text, or "yeah". In the first case, they have really put in a lot of effort, and made an in-depth response. In the second case, they either typed like one letter, then went away from the window, or they were constantly writing and erasing what they typed.

Another interesting phenomenon that I have witnessed is, you start typing, then you see that they started typing, so you erase what you had, in anticipation of their obviously more important message. Then they erase what they had when they saw you typing. Then you are left with no one saying anything for a good amount of time. This can even repeat itself.

The worst is when they ask you, what you had typed before erasing it. You erased it for a reason, so that is was never read, why would you want to say it? I always respond to that question with "nothing", which of course is a lie, but they shouldn't expect a real response to that stupid question.