In Meghan Daum’s “Virtual Love”, she describes her personal experience with an online romance that ended in disappointment and forced her to unpack the raw truth of the virtual world versus reality. Daum begins the article explaining how she and “PFslider”, the online username of the man she later develops a virtual romance with, met. He emails her about his admiration for some newspaper articles she had published recently. Daum goes on to narrate the beginning of their conversations back and forth and explains her sudden interest in the mysterious online user named Pete. Daum discusses how her interaction with him seems more authentic than anything she had experienced in the real world of living beings. She describes how Pete becomes her