"It is," he told me then, "the standard flip, flirtatious remark you would make in that kind of context. To which she probably goes "*smile* They're playing our song, wanna dance?"..."

"And then you do something like, "Slipping my arm around your waist, the other resting on your shoulder... guiding you along the floor in a slow, sensuous waltz..." and pretty soon you are flirting with each other, big time.

"Then, it's time for you to leave and you naturally enough make a date to meet again the next day. And as day follows day, the flirtatious interludes are sandwiched with real conversation, where you gradually begin finding out about the other. Where they are from, what they do, what turns them on, what pisses them off... and the more you learn, the more you begin empathising with that other person..."

If it is that simple, the question begs the asking, then why not in person? In real, as opposed to virtual life?

"Oh, yeah, at one point in time, I asked myself that too. I guess the thing is, in real time we take things for granted. I have a friend, I call, ask hey, how about splitting a beer, he says not today, can we take a rain check for Monday? I go sure, okay, come Monday I am caught up in something else and forget all about it...

"On the Net, things are different. You have only the chat site, okay? It's not like, you tell her you will see her at such and such a time and you find you can't make it, so you shrug and figure, okay, I'll give her a call maybe tomorrow -- because what guarantee have you got that when you get there the next day she is going to be there, waiting for you? See, in real life, you figure you can always catch up. In virtual space, the link is very, very tenuous -- just a chat site, and maybe an email address, is all there is. So you find you actually have to make an effort to keep in touch."

It is insidious, he told me. Sort of like getting hooked on drugs -- you couldn't map the path you took, from that first hit of marijuana "for fun" to the day you found your hands trembling uncontrollably because you hadn't got your wake-up fix.

"Yeah, drugs are a pretty good analogy, because this thing is very, very addictive. Increasingly, you begin to enjoy your times together. And begin to time it so that you are logging in earlier and logging out later. Your first act when you get to your computer is to check for mail from the person you are involved with. And your last act, after saying bye on the chat site and before you shut down for the night, is to mail her. Don't ask me to explain this -- the best explanation I can come up with is a line I read somewhere, which says, 'The heart has its reasons, that reason does not know!'"

Fair enough, I concede. I mean, which of us can look at a real-life friend and try to analyse, coldly and clinically, just how this person went from stranger to friend?

But love? I mean, we've all been in love. We know the thrill of that first contact of your hand with hers -- an oh-so-casual brush that sets your nerve ends tingling. The agonising before you summon up the courage to first slip an arm around her shoulder -- and lurch of the heart when she not only accepts the gesture, but leans into you. The first kiss... the first...