LothariOnline

What am I looking for? I haven’t thought about it much. The unexamined life, and all that. The fact I’m going through with it, this search, might imply that on some level I must know. But honestly, I couldn’t tell you. The search just is and has been for a while now. I imagine a therapist or a psychologist might deduce the reason, or anyone really, with enough insight. Not to say that there’s anything particularly complicated going on here, I don’t mean to compliment myself. Could that be you—the one who’ll understand me?

Anyway. I scroll; I CTRL+F with keywords; I open a few parallel threads to comb through. This user sounds boring; this one clearly got posted maliciously without their consent; this one offers very little to go on—might as well try. I suppose I’m simply in search of fantastic conversations. Wait, that almost sounds like I’m describing myself for invisible perusers. Well, I’m not. I don’t engage that way. Fine, I did it once out of curiosity, to see whether anyone would come say hi, but no one did. Perhaps I undersold myself then, did not bother painting an alluring picture (nor attaching one) along with my username, AdamOne. I much prefer to be the invisible peruser; I let others hawk themselves. There is something rather flattening in describing oneself. Look, here’s another intriguing user with a pithy little sentence to go along with it. I’ll try them. And how about this one? Sounds like we have some overlapping areas of interest; we’re of similar age, male… Might as well. I’ve been meaning to prove to myself I don’t just add those who declare themselves to be female—relic habit since the early days of Omegle, where as a teenager I would skip past any anonymous chatters who’d somehow reveal themselves to be males (like myself). As I enter this guy’s username into the app, I feel the embarrassment of being honest with myself. I know I’ll likely tap out of the chat sooner rather than later. And hell, maybe he won’t feel like bothering with me. Why’s a dude messaging me? Is he gay? he might think. But okay, Tastybagels11, I’ll give you as much of a shot as you give me. It’s been a while since I’ve had a genuine connection with another man.

Is it suspicious that my wishes remain vague? Understandable. But I genuinely am after a fantastic conversation. How do I define one? Well, the usual, really. What everyone wants: reciprocity, a lively rhythm, overlap, effort, serendipity, understanding, patience. That’s not too much, is it? I want—if I dare say it without polite minimization—to find a kindred spirit in every sense of the phrase. So, now that you know the wish, you might deduce what I lack in my life. At least I hope you will. I’m in need of a soul to pour myself into and accept what it pours back. I close the current thread I’m trawling—I’m done with it, and it was all mostly garbage and thinly veiled horniness. To be fair, some of it wasn’t veiled at all.

Alright, maybe that last description clued you in on the fact that I’m not exactly somewhere reputable or wholesome. I’m not. But if we figured out that I’m after a kindred spirit, and I’m looking for it in so suspect a place, then that must say something about how I view myself—on some inherent, unspoken, unconscious level—and how I view my potential Other. This place, which I’ll leave unnamed, out of propriety, and because I don’t want you to recoil too quickly, is a kind of test. Whoever my conversational partner will be must have some tolerance for the unsavory aspects of the internet and life in general. Or at least the ability to sift through it without getting hung up on the abundant, hateful, disgusting varieties. That, too, says something about me, does it not? Oh, you are so clever. And no, they are not the only ones being tested.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not some frightening degenerate. At least I don’t think I am. I’m twenty-three years old, I live a very normal, unremarkable life, even if it’s in a country and nation I admittedly despise. I have a few old friends, whom I—I think rightfully—disregard as candidates for kindred material, for our bond is based on shared origins and the longevity of our knowing one another, rather than compatibility. So, they fail me often and consistently. I learn to temper my expectations and cope. And, of course, I have my loving, fragmented family, who—let’s be serious—aren’t exactly the ones who could satisfy whatever it is I’m after here. I said ‘fantastic conversation’, right? That aside, I’m on the good and proper path toward earning my bachelor’s and later landing a hopefully nice job. I even have a sweet, intelligent girlfriend I’ve been with for about five, maybe six years. We see ourselves together forever—excuse the cliché. The next detail I am compelled to provide is regarding our sex life, which is decently frequent and fulfilling. I take care of her, and then I take care of myself. But it begs the question: why do I default to treating sex as proof that all is well…? The other aspects of our relationship are also fine, I think. Although. I must admit, none of this is happening consciously, and even so, despite tapping into the magic of the wise unconscious, some kernels remain out of reach.

Anyhow, look, I get that the fact I’m currently scrolling through a page that’s about eighty-five percent nudity on a late night in the middle of the week might seem… untoward. Okay, it is untoward. But I swear, I’m not some lecherous philanderer looking for an eighteen-year-old to swap nudes with in some frenzied back-and-forth. I’m just not the type.

I’m sending out my usual opener these days: Hullo, I come in peace and curiosity, followed by the alien emoji. It is a simple message, and better than more elaborate ones that might be wasted on users who will never reply. And I wait a moment to see whether this person—okay, woman; they claim to be a woman (you know how the internet gets, don’t you?)—will humor me, whether we are of a compatible temperament. Once half an hour passes, I mentally move on, though the chat is still there if indeed she will respond. I do this with maybe ten more usernames, and, yes, Tastybagels11 is one of them. I hope that at least someone will respond. I only need one, really, because I’ve come to learn that I’m terrible at maintaining more than one engaged conversation. One surges ahead, the other lags. One girl appears to be eager, the other offended or merely bored by the lack of responsiveness. She quits. You figure out your capacity rather quickly, and I’ve learned not to spread myself thin.

You ask whether my girlfriend is aware of this? You probably already have a guess, for you are so clever. I apologize; I don’t mean to agitate or condescend. To your question: I think she does know, to a degree, because she knows me, to a degree. She’s well aware I struggle to gel with my friends, not to mention the friends I have via her proxy. She says—whether to flatter or diagnose me—that I’m special, or rare. Which is why I’m forced to look for friends online. She is aware of a kind of precedent—an online friend I’ve had since before we knew each other: the mythical “Reptile”. He’s a guy from Finland I’ve only ever known by his alias, or the jokey, vaguely Finnish name, Samuli, which I made up for him, following his hurtful refusal to reveal his true name. And, since truth is invoked, truth will be told: I don’t speak to him much these days. I never could be too earnest with him for too long, seeing how our friendship grew from a basis of internet snark and irony. So, she does know. To a degree.

Tastybagels11 answers my text. His energy is muted and perhaps confused from the get-go; he addresses me as if I tapped his shoulder in a hallway, looking for directions rather than him. I forgot to mention that the avatar I have is a selfie I believe looks good and flatters me, and it likely works differently on a man than on a woman. I ask him about this video game, or that one—already knowing the conversation won’t reach the fantastic standard I attempt to describe here, to you. Attempt made, at the very least, and he quits before I do. A different user answers now, a girl this time. But this one, too, is all wrong. She calls me sexy, compliments my eyes, and promptly plunges in to ask me about inches. In frustration I close the chat. She sends another message, offering nudes, saying she is severely horny. I block her. You see? It’s not that simple. And I won’t even bore you with the third user tonight, who, despite being a girl, is simply. Too. Empty.

So, you probably want to see whether I’m capable of introspection regarding my pursuit of girls, given my circumstances. I suppose I have a moment while I wait for some other users to reply, so see if this answer satisfies you: perhaps in my naivete I believe it’s just far easier for me to get along with girls—that it’s been this way since around middle school, when I became more aware of my emotions, and in need of expressing them. Now, I won’t claim to know any deep truths about myself, or men like me, but it may be a matter of how vulnerable I can allow myself to be. With another man, whether due to some banal hangup or deficiency, I don’t feel comfortable opening up all that much. I think I might worry about where that could lead, if the loaded events from my past are anything to go by—which, no, I won’t speak of here. Because another user’s just answered. Haven’t you heard the satisfying ping? I really am terrible at splitting my attention.

This user bears the decidedly emo handle amfilledwithsadness. She replies to my message with a lewd joke at the expense of my greeting. She says: I come in waves. And already my interest is piqued, but no, not because of the sexual nature of the joke, but because of her wordplay. She, or whoever it is, has displayed wit and a kind of satisfying responsiveness to my reaching out to them. It’s too early to tell, but my sensitive ears can hear the faint echo of a click in the silence of the night. We’re replying back and forth, and perhaps my hunch is correct: this person who declares they are filled with sadness is as engaged as I am—is likely driven by a similar need. Our conversation begins to promise things, and my inner eye imagines a somber beach, so I ignore other users that pop up. I also briefly text my girlfriend that I’m off to bed, just so my attention isn’t split too uncomfortably. For, you see, these first moments are the most crucial. If I bore amfilledwithsadness at this stage, they will drift off, and I will have squandered the opportunity to have a fantastic conversation.

As it goes on, I become more enamored, and so does she, this Scottish Aimee. We seem to share a wavelength, and it is at this point I’m reminded of the… What shall we call it? The danger? I’m reminded of how I treat every promising conversation with extreme generosity, a fount of energy, and open-endedness: each encounter is a vast, empty highway upon which I could simply drive off into the horizon. And believe me, I somehow have more than enough fuel. Only there are people at home who are waiting for me to come back, and if I drive too far, the return will take longer and longer. I will have to make pit stops, might spend the night in a motel, defer, delay, risk myself on the motorway. Such is the compelling pull of the road, and for some reason, it calls to me that way. And before you speak—yes, of course I agree with you. It is despicable, it is irresponsible. Flowery language will not, cannot, hide the gnarled rot. But alas, we are running out of time, and I must devote more of my attention to amfilledwithsadness. Here, at this stage, it’s as though I’m sitting in the middle of the highway—not in a car, no—with the phone in my hand, looking utterly dazed and confused, staring ahead at fierce headlights. You tell me, are they barrelling toward me? While we still have a moment, I’ll admit the questions I must answer, before it is too late: do I know what I’m doing and why? Do I own it? Will I be able to claim ignorance? What if I just keep this fact locked away from one and all, even you, and me? While I sit here typing, beginning to like amfilledwithsadness more and more (maybeamtoo), the headlights intensify, flooding my vision with blinding white as the horn howls. Already blinded, I swear I am deafened, too. Though not mute, and certainly not dumb.

It is coming.