The memory seems to be seared into my mind for some reason. It was back in 2010, and I was working on my master’s in Saudi Arabia. Those two years were some of the loneliest in my life; I was living by myself for the very first time, and I had not managed to grow out of my extremely introverted shell – one wonders if I ever did, to be honest – at the time. So, while other students hung out in lounges and cafes and did nothing of consequence, I sat at home on my couch, watching TV and talking to people online. At the time, my platform of choice – aside from the then ever-present and entirely chaotic Twitter – was one of those chat websites. You know the type; chat rooms, organized by interest, full of anonymous people saying the most random things. I’d been on similar websites before, during my undergraduate years, but I’d stopped for some reason. At that point though, Twitter had grown into a familiar thing, a link to the friends and people back home, and I needed something different. So there I was, jumping back into those sparse windows filled with unfettered thoughts. I won’t pretend that it wasn’t utterly disgusting at times; I mean, I know that, and you probably do as well. That’s just the nature of the beast. But, joining the room dedicated towards those in their early twenties, there was definitely an element of shared disillusionment that brought everyone together, as people talked about their days, their struggles with school or with their partners, and of course, flirted endlessly with one another.
But I’m getting sidetracked here; during those chats, you could choose to send a private message to someone, if you wanted to talk to them in a less chaotic environment. (and yes, of course A/S/L messages were ubiquitous at the time). I don’t recall how it exactly happened, but I remember starting to talk to this girl who was older than I was at the time. I think she was perhaps 26 or 27, and I was entirely taken by her. In an environment that lent itself to usage of shorthand and internet speak, someone who wrote full sentences and used punctuation was someone you noticed, you know? And this girl could write. She wove those incredible stories about her life, about the people she knew, and the experiences she had, the countries she’d visited, the music she wrote, and you couldn’t help but get swept up in it all. I mean, for someone to want to tell you all these things, it was something I just appreciated immensely. It didn’t even come to mind that she could be making all of those things up. She could’ve even been a guy who was having some fun at my expense, but none of those thoughts came to me. It just seemed so entirely unlikely that someone was taking all of this time to let you know about them, and even more incredibly, learn more about you and provide their opinion and thoughts on the struggles you were going through. It would be a massive waste of time, not to mention impossibly boring, to troll someone through listening to him complain about family troubles, or how he was struggling with his studies.
Anyway, of course I fell for her; a pretty girl who seemed so worldly and yet so interested in what I had to say? I stood no chance whatsoever. Even more strangely, she seemed to be into me too, expressing her feelings in a very honest and open manner that would take years for me to experience again from anyone else. We talked for hours, thinking about the ways we could possibly meet up, and the places we’d go and the things we would do. I knew it was all very silly, but…come on, I was a lovesick 22 year old. I was invested.
Then one day, of course, she just vanished. Offline on MSN Messenger. Offline in that chat room. I’d gotten used to finding her online every day, so the sudden disappearance was immediately worrisome. Unfortunately, I had no one to reach out to in order to know more; she didn’t talk much to other people in that chat room, we had no common friends, and all I had to go with was a first name. Google would’ve laughed at me if it could. Initially I thought it was something I’d done or said, so I kept looking back at our last messages, trying to find an angle from which my words would’ve seemed offensive, but my efforts utterly failed. And after a week or so of frantically logging into those online services at various hours of the day, I was convinced that she was gone forever.
I usually forget about this girl for months or even years on end, but sometimes when I’m just sitting, I recall that there was this very brief period of time when this very peculiar stranger just appeared in my life, and promptly disappeared shortly afterwards, without a trace. And every time, I wonder what she could be doing right now. I wonder if something had happened, or if she’d just had to move on with her life. Maybe she moved out and lost her internet connection for a while. Maybe she met someone and forgot about all that nonsense.
Or maybe she never existed, someone’s bored pastime that had turned boring in its own right.
But whatever it might be, I hope that she – in whatever form she might truly take – is okay.
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