We can’t help playing out our romances in the digital space, but without the proper counterbalance of some good ole-fashioned face-to-face time, it’s easy to lose sense of who we and our loved ones are beyond the text. What’s lost is more than just our grasp on reality, but everything that goes along with an unmediated human interaction—the messages we tell in the way we move our hands and eyes, the way we laugh, the way we stutter, blush, and lean in slowly. And as awkward and fumbling as these offline encounters can be, they’ll always be easier to read, believe, and think back on fondly than any LOL, <3, or on-screen sentiment could ever be.

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