notes (don't open yet maybe)

11:42pm. Laundry's still in the dryer downstairs and I can hear it thumping through the floor. One sock probably. Anyway I told myself I'd write this down before I actually click anything because otherwise I just sit there and do the thing and feel weird after.

So. The thing I keep doing is opening one of those talk-to-a-stranger sites when I can't sleep. Not even for any reason. Just to hear a different brain for a minute. Tonight it's Knot.chat I think, the one with the skip thing.

First thing I do, before anything loads, I find the skip button. It's bottom right, little arrow. I don't start until I know where it is, which sounds dramatic written down and it isn't, it's just that I hate when something loads and you're suddenly Face To Face with a man eating cereal and there's no obvious way out and you panic-close the whole laptop. Knowing where the arrow is changes how the whole thing sits. You sit different. Like knowing where the door is in a room. Okay. Found it. Good.

okay other things, while I'm thinking of it —

camera. The box from my order is on the desk behind me. The shipping label is RIGHT THERE, like my actual full name and the apartment number, 4B, all of it. I almost didn't notice it was in frame. I turned it around so the blank side faces the lens. Could've just moved it but I like the desk how it is. The label thing got to me more than I expected, honestly, more than anything that happened after. The recycling has like three more of those leaned against the wall and the address is just sitting there on cardboard. Tomorrow. I keep saying tomorrow.

11:48

Door. Maddie's in the other room, she's staying over because her radiator died, and the bedroom door is open like a foot. I'm leaving it open. Not because I think anything is going to happen but because the apartment makes that settling-creak noise and if I'm fully closed in with headphones I get jumpy at my own building. So. Door open a foot. She's right there watching something with one earbud in. If I laugh too loud she'll yell what. She is, without knowing it, basically the entire reason I feel fine doing this at all. The radiator broke and now she's my bodyguard. She'd find that so funny.

tea's going cold. whatever.

11:55 — okay I did a couple.

first one skipped me before I even, fine.

second guy was okay actually, talked about his dog for a bit, then it got to "so are you home alone right now" really fast and I just. no. Why is that always the question. I didn't answer it, I said my roommate's being loud which is sort of true, Maddie had the volume up, and he went quiet and then skipped. Fine by me honestly. That question is where I'm out, every time, no thinking about it. Anyone who needs to establish that I'm by myself before they'll keep talking is just telling me what the conversation is for, and it's not getting-to-know-you and it's not flattering. The second someone wants to know if there's anyone else in the apartment, gone.

12:03am

ugh okay the next one. He was funny for a minute, genuinely, and then —

"this app is trash lol, get telegram, what's your @"

and I said no I'm good here

"come on it's so much better, I'll send you the thing"

no I'm good

"why are you being weird"

and that's the other one. The move-me-somewhere-else thing. They always want to leave the place that has the skip button. The place where I can just be gone. They want me on the app where it's my handle and my notifications and there's no little arrow bottom right. That's the whole reason and I think they think I don't notice it's the whole reason. If you can't just talk in the boring window then there's nothing to talk about. Stay where I can vanish. Skipped him. Didn't even feel bad.

(charger's unplugged again, Maddie I swear. plugging in. 14%.)

12:09

okay this is the one I actually want to write down because it's probably the reason I'm keeping this note at all.

Guy comes up, fine, normal-ish, and then he just — types out an address. Not his. Like, "you live near ___ right" and it was close. Close enough that my stomach did the thing. I don't know if it was a guess or if he, I don't know how, the label was turned around, I'd checked, it was turned around. Maybe coincidence. Big city, lots of people near there. But he kept going, kept on it, "it's fine you can tell me," and I

I reported him. There's a little report thing, I'd never used it, I always just skip. But skipping felt like it just sends him to the next person and I didn't want that to be the only thing I did. So I clicked report. It made me pick a reason, "making me uncomfortable / personal info," whatever the closest one was. Then skipped. Then sat here for a second. It felt like yelling into a drawer, like it does nothing, maybe it does nothing. But it took five seconds and I felt less gross than just passing him along to whoever was next.

Maddie goes "you good" from the other room and I said yeah, and I am, but I closed the laptop lid halfway like a weirdo.

12:14

reading this back later, me, whoever's tired and doing this again next week — I'm not going to pretend I figured anything out tonight. The boxes still freaked me out more than the actual people. The address one I'll be thinking about for a couple days probably, the way he just kept saying it's fine you can tell me, real gentle, like the gentleness was the point.

12:19

dryer stopped. one sock, calling it. going to go get the laundry and not open the laptop again tonight, that's the actual plan.

I don't know why I do the stranger thing at all, some nights. It's not lonely exactly. It's like — wanting the world to be a little bigger than this room for ten minutes without having to go anywhere. That's allowed I think. Just with the door open a foot and the box turned around and the little arrow somewhere I can reach it and Maddie with her one earbud in the next room not knowing she's doing anything at all.

ok. tea's fully cold. bed.

(— turned the other two boxes around before I forgot. 12:24. now bed.)