Editing 276: Fixed Width

{{comic
| number    = 276
| date      = June 13, 2007
| title     = Fixed Width
| image     = fixed_width.png
| titletext = I wish I knew how to quit this so I wouldn't have to quit you.
| imagesize =
}}

==Explanation==
The title is a direct reference to that fact that, starting with the third line, Rob and Emily's IM conversation is the exact same length. While this may be by chance, Rob is forced to change what he wants to type to continue the pattern, which 
Emily immediately breaks because she's hurt at what he's said. Rob then attempts to justify what he said which, possibly by design, is the normal text alignment for making text being even on both the left and right sides of a page.

==Transcript==
[A man, Rob, is sitting at a computer. The text is an IRC-style transcript of a conversation, in a fixed-width font. He is text-messaging a girl he slept with named Emily; their messages read as follows:]
<pre>
<rob> hi
<emily> hey you
<rob> last night was nice
<emily> the best i've had
<rob> yeah it was AMAZING
<emily> ok, i have to ask
<emily> is this for real?
<emily> or is it just sex
<rob> definitely just sex
<emily> holy shit
<emily> are you serious?
<emily> you don't know how much that made
        my stomach hurt
<emily> i want to cry
<rob> i'm sorry
<rob> i wanted to type 'i love you'
<rob> but our line lengths were syncing up
<emily> ...
<rob> and it would have broken the pattern
* emily has disconnected
</pre>

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 | image     = fixed_width.png
 | titletext = I wish I knew how to quit this so I wouldn't have to quit you.
+| imagesize =
 }}
 ==Explanation==
-Fixed width or {{w|monospaced font}} refers to the font used in old teletype terminals and some {{w|instant messaging}} clients (often {{w|Courier (typeface)|Courier}}).
+The title is a direct reference to that fact that, starting with the third line, Rob and Emily's IM conversation is the exact same length. While this may be by chance, Rob is forced to change what he wants to type to continue the pattern, which
+Emily immediately breaks because she's hurt at what he's said. Rob then attempts to justify what he said which, possibly by design, is the normal text alignment for making text being even on both the left and right sides of a page.
-For two text lines to have the same length, it's easier if they are in a monospaced font. For example, the following sentences are the same length in a monospaced font, but since we are using a {{w|proportional font}}, those lengths are not exact (the third line is noticeably wider):
-<font face="Times New Roman, Times">
-:<rob> last night was nice
-:<emily> the best i've had
-:<rob> yeah it was AMAZING
-</font>
-The title is possibly a double reference, both to a monospaced font and to lines of the same length. Initially, by mere chance, Emily's and [[Rob]]'s lines were exactly the same length. This made Rob want to continue the pattern. That Rob feels forced to change what he wants to type to continue the pattern could be a symptom of {{w|obsessive–compulsive disorder}}. Because of the monospaced font, any reply with nineteen characters (including space) would have continued the pattern. For example, "definitely for real" or "i'm in love with you" would have worked, but Rob didn't seem to think about them
-In the title text Rob continues to write a sentence: "I wish I knew how to quit this so I wouldn't have to quit you." He acknowledges that he has a problem, since he cannot quit his desire to keep the fixed width. If he could have quit this desire, then he would not have had to quit Emily. But since he felt he had to keep the fixed width, he involuntarily wrote something that felt for Emily as if he quit her. And he was too late out with his apology for her to read it.
 ==Transcript==
-:[A man, Rob, is sitting at a computer. The text is an IRC-style transcript of a conversation, in a fixed-width font. He is text-messaging a girl he slept with named Emily; their messages read as follows:]
+[A man, Rob, is sitting at a computer. The text is an IRC-style transcript of a conversation, in a fixed-width font. He is text-messaging a girl he slept with named Emily; their messages read as follows:]
 <pre>
 <rob> hi
@@ Line 46: / Line 37: @@
 </pre>
-==Trivia==
+{{Comic discussion}}
-This is the first xkcd comic featuring [[Rob]].
-{{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
-[[Category:Romance]]
-[[Category:Sex]]
-[[Category:Social interactions]]