A transversal is a line that passes through two other points.  The transversal of time and space is the space in between the two.
The social moves through this transversal, rupturing in space, yet battling with gaps in time.  Virtual and physical interactions in different time zones alter the social.  These larger breaks in time have strong effects on relationships because time is bound with the social.  I find it amazing that “the virtual precludes the actual” (Boellstorff 2008: 102).  For example, in Second Life, a user can be sitting in a room speaking to three other avatars, but the users behind the avatars are located in completely different parts of the world.  Space is abridged through the virtual world, and the relationships in the virtual only thrive if the sociality is synchronic (if the users from various parts of the world are logged on to Second Life at the same time).

The virtual and physical are constantly overlapping and intersecting.  Differences in space and time change the social in relation to virtual simulations, whether the simulations are online virtual and alternate worlds (see Second Life) or replicas of wartime Iraq (see Full Battle Rattle).  Thinking about difference as a process that incorporates and alters social systems is a central thread in understanding the connection between the virtual and physical.  

*Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.