As far as I understand it, a "connection" in this context is a line of communication between you and some other machine that is ready to send or receive data.

As far as I understand it, a "connection" in this context is a line of communication between you and some other machine that is ready to send or receive data. Think of sending a text (connectionless) vs making a phone call (connection-oriented. why it's not called "connectionful" is beyond me). When you send a text, you hope that the recipient gets it. If they don't, you send it again until they do. Whereas when you make a phone call, the call is live the minute you dial the number. You're not always talking to the recipient, though; you might be waiting for them to pick up, trying again because the number is busy, in call waiting, etc. (Packets transmitted via VoIP phone calls are usually UDP and texts _can be_ sent over TCP IIRC, but that's neither here nor there :D)