> "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" I ask Almond one day. "I already am. That's what this is"

Spot on. Sometimes that's all it takes, someone from the real world to remind you that you're OK, that _this_ is living, that it's good enough. After that the unreality at the inside of digital perdition starts to unravel and dissolve. The mind starts to wander back to that most highly addictive of all things, reality.