A story about someone I never expected to care about
CHAPTER ONE
Hello, Stranger
The first thing I should probably tell you is that I have always loved writing down my feelings.
I know, I know. It sounds a little funny, especially because I have so many diaries hidden somewhere, filled with thoughts, stories, and feelings that I have never really shared with anyone. I have always preferred keeping those things to myself. My diaries have witnessed so many versions of me, including the ones I never show to the world.
I have never really exposed my writing online, either. Most of the things I write are meant to stay private, somewhere between me, my thoughts, and the pages of my books.
But somehow, here I am, writing something for you.
Well, technically, I’m not even sure if you’re ever going to read this. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. Maybe this book will remain a secret forever, and you’ll never even know that somewhere in the world, there is a girl who once sat down and wrote so many words about you.
And honestly? That’s okay.
I don’t think I need you to read this for my feelings to be real. I just want somewhere to put everything I have been carrying inside me. I want to remember how this all started, how ridiculous it was, and how a person I once considered a complete stranger slowly became someone I couldn’t stop thinking about.
And the funniest part?
I never planned for any of this to happen.
Seriously. If someone had told me back then that I would eventually write a whole book about a guy I met online, I would probably have laughed in their face.
Because, excuse me, what the hell?
How did we even get here?
Let me take you back to the beginning.
At that time, I was actually waiting to start an online meeting with my colleague. I don’t even remember exactly what was going through my mind, but somehow, instead of doing what I was supposed to do, I ended up talking to random people online.
And then I met you.
Just like that.
No romantic music. No dramatic movie scene. No magical moment when the universe supposedly brought two people together.
Just me, sitting somewhere, talking to a stranger on the internet because I was bored.
And you happened to be one of those strangers.
I remember thinking that this conversation probably wouldn’t mean anything. We would talk for a while, maybe laugh a little, and then go back to our own lives. Eventually, I would forget about you, block you, and move on with my day.
Simple, right?
At least, that’s what I thought.
Because, let’s be honest, who were you?
I didn’t know where you lived. I didn’t know what your everyday life looked like, what your habits were, what kind of person you were when nobody was watching, or whether you were actually a good person or just another random guy looking for someone to entertain him.
I knew absolutely nothing about you.
And yet, there I was, talking to you.
When I first saw your face, I remember making a very quick judgment.
“Oh, this guy is probably a pervert.”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
I’m sorry, but that’s genuinely what I thought.
I figured you were probably just another bored guy who wanted to have some fun online. Nothing serious, nothing meaningful. Just two strangers passing time together because neither of us had anything better to do at that moment.
I wasn’t looking for love. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wasn’t even looking for someone to become emotionally attached to.
At least, not consciously.
I was just there for fun.
And somehow, I ended up giving you my number.
Don’t ask me why, because honestly, I don’t even remember my own reasoning. Maybe I was curious. Maybe I found you interesting enough to keep talking to. Or maybe I was lonely, too, and I didn’t want to admit it.
Perhaps I simply liked the feeling of having someone new to talk to.
Whatever the reason was, I gave you my number, and we continued our conversation on iMessage because it felt a little more private.
And then we called.
It wasn’t even that long, if I remember correctly. We talked, did what we wanted to do, and that was it.
In my mind, the story was already over.
I genuinely thought I would forget about you afterward.
I mean, come on. You were a stranger from the internet. We lived our own separate lives, and there was absolutely no reason for me to think you would become anything more than a random memory.
So I went back to my life.
And I assumed you did the same.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
If only I had known how many times I would eventually come back to this story in my head.
The next day, things somehow continued. We started talking on WhatsApp, and I guess our communication became a little more regular.
But there was one thing about you that I found incredibly annoying.
You kept calling me out of nowhere.
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Like, seriously?
WHO DOES THAT?
Sometimes I would be outside, doing my own thing, and suddenly my phone would start ringing because of you. And I would be sitting there thinking, “Bro, what the hell are you doing? I’m outside!”
I remember putting my phone on Do Not Disturb because I didn’t want to deal with unexpected calls. Sometimes I wanted to tell you directly, “I’m outside, bitch. Stop calling me!”
But instead of explaining everything, I would send you random videos while I was walking around.
That was my way of letting you know I was busy without actually saying it.
Looking back, it’s kind of funny. There we were, two people who barely knew each other, already developing little habits and annoyances around one another.
But at that point, I still didn’t think much of you.
You were just you.
A random guy I met online.
Someone I could talk to when I felt like it and ignore when I didn’t.
Until one day, something happened that genuinely offended my ego.
You blocked me.
WAIT.
WHAT THE HELL?
YOU BLOCKED ME FIRST?
I remember being so confused. I never expected you to do that, especially without giving me a proper explanation. Before that moment, I had never really experienced a guy blocking me first like that.
And somehow, it bothered me more than it should have.
It wasn’t even necessarily because I liked you.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
I think it was my ego that got hurt. I couldn’t understand why you were the one who decided to disappear first. In my head, I was the one who was supposed to get bored, lose interest, and block you whenever I felt like it.
Not the other way around.
“Who the hell are you to block me first? That was supposed to be my job!”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
God, I was so childish.
But that’s honestly how I felt at the time.
I didn’t like the fact that you had made the decision for both of us. I didn’t like the feeling of being the person who was left wondering what had happened.
And maybe, even though I wasn’t ready to admit it, I didn’t like the fact that you could disappear without me having any say in it.
So, naturally, I did something that probably wasn’t the healthiest response.
I tried to get your attention again.
I remember messaging you on iMessage and saying something along the lines of missing you.
Was I actually missing you?
I don’t even know.
Maybe I missed talking to you. Maybe I missed the attention. Maybe I simply wanted to prove to myself that I could still get a response from you.
Or maybe I just wanted to win a game that neither of us had officially agreed to play.
I know. It sounds toxic.
And honestly, it probably was.
But at that time, I wasn’t thinking deeply about my actions. I was just reacting to the situation, trying to get back the control I felt I had lost.
Then, after a few days, you called me again on WhatsApp.
And somehow, we started talking again.
I can’t remember exactly how many times we called after that or how many conversations we had. The details are a little blurry now. I just remember that we somehow found our way back into each other’s lives, even if only in a small and inconsistent way.
But here’s the thing.
I still wasn’t that interested in you.
In fact, there were moments when I felt completely turned off by you.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I could talk to you one day and feel absolutely nothing special the next. Sometimes I enjoyed our conversations, and sometimes I wondered why I was even entertaining this whole thing.
I wasn’t imagining a future with you. I wasn’t thinking about what we might become. I certainly wasn’t planning to write a book about you.
You were just someone I happened to know.
Someone I could laugh with, talk to, or occasionally get annoyed by.
And if you had asked me back then whether I thought you would become important to me, I probably would have laughed.
Because, at that point, you were still just a stranger.
And I was convinced that strangers were easy to forget.
I had no idea that you would eventually become the kind of person I would try so hard to forget.
Or that forgetting you would turn out to be much more difficult than meeting you in the first place.
To be continued….
