Signs of greater Age (55)

Even into older age
you maintain your online life
and it runs to familiar form.

When you tire of sending emails
and all the other 'office work',
where the screen says
'You have to get this done!'
your mind turns the screen to porn,
but even there your tastes in porn
are not what they used to be.

Where once the figures on the screen
were young, lithe and lissom,
veritable athletes in their prime, 
the performers you now like
 are older and they now take a lot longer 
to do what once seemed to take no time at all,
just like the office work you were avoiding doing.

Petition Fatigue

Is one of the common temptations of the online life. 

In the analogue past defensive householders
would have a notice next to their front door
that said 'No hawkers or religious callers. Thank you.'.
to which they could point and help them expel the caller
whilst bidding them 'Good day.'. With frosty disdain.

On their post box it would say 'Post, no bills.',
meaning no hand bills for products or causes
the householder has not given prior approval of. 

It is harder to make a similar defence with our emails.
through which we  receive the simulated sociability,
though various blocks and filters will hide from us
material we estimate that we don't want to see.

But when another petition for another good cause
lands in our inbox, having evaded the filters
then the petition meets the human filter,
'How many times have I read similar to this before?'
where the same subject has been through many courts
and has given many lawyers a renewed income
as commerce fights ethics for the millionth time,
and the audience know too little about the cause,
or the court case, to know with whom to side.   

Notes In Lieu Of A Relationship

In the online world few questions
get more personal, or harder to ask,  
than that of 'relationship status'.

Online we are singular and alone,
we are our own 'avatars',
regardless of who we volunteer
to be attached to in our analogue life.

Saying 'It's complicated'
seems more more transparent
than saying 'It's personal',
both words add up to the same thing.

Full relationships are complex.
The fuller the relationship
the more it requires respect,
which is hard to find online.

On The Internet

But what you download is only a small part of what you are.