Point, Click, Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

so … high-strung lately,” said Maxine.
    “I know, I know,” said Claudia. “It’s Steve. He’s making me crazy!”
    “It can’t be all about Steve,” said Annie. Annie was their never-been-married friend. She had no idea what a husband could do to a woman.
    “Believe me, it’s all about Steve,” said Claudia.
    “Well, whatever it’s about, we think you need to talk to someone,” said Katie.
    So she went and talked to someone. Claudia described to the doctor how the mild annoyance she had been building up toward her husband over the years had lately turned into all-out hate. She told him that Steve was a lazy good-for-nothing whose only ambition was to reach the highest level of Halo. She told him that Steve watched everyone from Rachael Ray to Paula Deen to Emeril on the Food Network but never once got off his ass to make dinner for the family. And, to top it all off, he had thrown himself into Facebook, creating an alternate universe for himself where he wasn’t such a pathetic loser.
    Yes, the Facebook thing was what really got her. Claudia had joined two years ago because it was a requirement for attending her twenty-year high school reunion, and Steve decided he’d signup too. For the first year they pretty much ignored it, passively acquiring “friends” but never posting anything or seeking anyone out. But when Steve lost his job, he went on a frenzied friend-acquisition spree, racking up some five hundred friends. His five or so “real” friends would call him up and ask him to go out for lunch or to play a round of golf or have a drink with the guys, but Steve always refused, preferring to stay home and interact online with his five hundred fake friends. Claudia figured he’d rather be the cool, funny Facebook guy than the depressed, boring, unemployed guy who had to be cheered up by his buddies.
    Steve was one of those perpetual status updaters, but instead of telling the truth (“Watching Rachael Ray make a turkey lasagna and thinking about the Chinese takeout we’ll have tonight” or “Just wondering how many brain cells die from three straight hours of Call of Duty”), he’d write vague, elliptical posts about exotic travel (“Anyone know if it’s OK to drink the water in Cambodia?”) and philosophers he’d never read (“I’m gonna vote ‘no’ on Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return”).
    And whenever they went somewhere as a family—a restaurant, the girls’ soccer game, the mountains of Colorado—Steve would always be on his iPhone, punching in his status. “Bacon burger topped with brie. Gotta try it!” “Sandy and Janie the big scorers!” “No place better than the Colorado Rockies!” he’d enthuse, even though he didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the burger, the game, or the view.
    It was bad enough that Steve had sunk so low, but his insistence on making everyone else think he was at the top of the world made it all the worse.
    So Claudia stopped going on Facebook. In fact, she began to shun all forms of electronic communication, seeing them as an evil plot to disguise the truth and ultimately prevent real human interaction. At the public relations firm where Claudia worked, everyone used email and instant messaging and texting to communicate,never calling or actually getting up from their desk and speaking directly to their coworkers. Claudia decided she would single-handedly change the corporate culture. So when she got an IM from her boss, who sat in a cubicle two feet away, saying, “Did you look over that press release?” Claudia peeked over the fabric-covered wall and answered, “Yes.”
    That was how Claudia got over her chronic bitchiness.
    After working at the firm for three years, Claudia knew barely a quarter of the two-hundred-some employees. But once she started following her new face-to-face policy, she discovered that there were a lot of cool, interesting people in her office. Like Fred in accounts payable.
    “Fred?” she