He loved using the Chatly app because as he himself admits, he’s too shy to meet girls in real life. The anonymous interactions that the app provided excited him even more than the possibility that somewhere in the world there is the right girl waiting for him. It was not an addiction he insists, but more of a basic human need for communication. “Then why don’t you ever go outside the house?” his mother frequently asks him and always, the replies are variations of how they live in a small town that boasts no excitement whatsoever. “Plus the girls in this town are either taken or ugly- and I’m not about to settle for personality!” he’ll say. The principle of the app is simple, you sign up, type in facts about yourself (gender, etc), and it automatically pairs you for chatting with someone whom the algorithms of the app determines as your perfect match. Whether or not it works for the both of you is outside the app’s control; it’s up to the people involved if they decide they liked each other enough to stick around. Otherwise, you can simply opt out by ending the chat.

He’s had instances when the girl on the other end would abruptly end the conversation without saying goodbye. He hates to confess it, but when they do that it stings on the inside as all rejections do, even anonymously. It was during the nth time playing around with the app that fate brought him to a girl named Jen. “I love Dystopian fiction.” This for some reason was Jen’s introduction. “1984?” he immediately typed in and Jen replied with “Totally!” It was love at first chat. The conversation went from books to the personal, spanning topics from favorite ice cream flavor to their shared Atheism. “There is no substantial evidence to prove that there exists a God. Man created the concept of a god as an excuse for his imperfections.” This was according to Jen and in his mind, this was a sign that he found a potential friend. Jen is a self-confessed introvert like him; she says she prefers staying at home as she’s “allergic to other people’s bullshit.”. And this information was the go signal for him to move to the next step.

“So, Jen, are you seeing anybody at the moment?” He typed on his phone, hoping that it didn’t sound too obvious his intentions. “Hmm…I’ve had some from the past, but at the moment? No.” Jen replied. He almost gave himself a high-five. Now having more confidence, he uploaded on the screen the best picture he could find in his photo album. He captioned: “This is a fairly recent pic of me. See, I’m not some pervert living in his mom’s basement, I’m just a regular guy albeit on the skinny side.” Again, he hoped that by uploading his picture Jen would be encouraged to do the same. “You kinda resemble John Greene, glasses and all…cute!” Then a pause. After a few awkward seconds Jen told him that she needed to run errands for her mom and that she had to end the chat. “Goodbye for now. You’re a cool dude to talk to. We’ll chat again. Bye!” Disappointed, he typed in his goodbye. However, there was no doubt in his mind that they will talk again through the app the next day.

When tomorrow came, he waited all day for Jen’s online status to light up. He ceased from his normal daily activity of sitting on his bed reading books just so when Jen does appear online, they’ll be able to chat. He waited all afternoon until his mother called him for dinner. At the table, his mom noticed that he won’t stop checking his phone instead of eating. “Mind your manners young man!” She told him in a sing-song voice. She only took her eyes off him when he tucked his phone in his shirt pocket. “By the way, your Grandma Janis and Uncle Ted will visit us tomorrow.” His mother informed him as she mushed her potatoes with a fork. He gave her a slight nod but it was obvious he wasn’t interested in any of that. Later on, lying on his bed at midnight, he patiently waited for Jen on the app. It was about an hour later when the screen showed him that Jen is finally online. Immediately, he tapped her name and typed in “Hey!”. Several moments passed before the word “SEEN” was displayed underneath his message but no reply came. He tried another approach: “I hope you’re not having any trouble with whatever. Even if you have, I’m here to listen.” Again, the word “SEEN” and nothing. He sighed. Did he come off as too upfront about his intentions? Perhaps the glasses made him come off as too nerdy? But she loves reading books and staying at home, surely she won’t mind hanging out with a nerd? Such are the questions that whirled inside his mind. In the end, he gave up. She was probably one of those girls who pretended they did the same things as smart people do so boys would take them seriously. And by boys, he meant the good-looking ones. He took it as a slight against his person but his defence mechanism retorted that by not uploading a picture, it was obvious that Jen was ugly. “And possibly fat.” He thought to himself, nursing his inner hurt by thinking the worst of the girl who hurt him. In the end, he got over it and slept in the wee hours of the morning.

He dreamt about a girl named Jen. In his dream, Jen was a pretty brunette with big breasts and a small waist. They stayed on his bed all day reading books and mocking religion with the occasional sex here and there. As he pounded her from behind in his dream sex scene, he kneaded her butt cheeks and slapped them hard until they turned red. In the dream, Jen stopped gyrating on his penis to turn her head to look at him; without warning, she transformed into a giant burrito. The dream ended here. He woke up to his mother’s voice and an aching erection.

His relatives visited them that day. Grandma Janis was lively for her age and as usual, uncle Ted was weird. He can’t help but imagine his uncle eating glue at a young age, uncle Ted certainly looked like someone who’d do that. With his uncle obese, balding, and smelling like moist fart, he had every evidence to assume so. Uncle Ted ignored him for the most part. While eating, uncle Ted made porcine sounds as he gorged on the meal prepared especially for their visit. After their lunch the four of them went to the front porch to have tea. Grandma Janis reminded his mother that she accidentally left a scarf on their house on a prior visit. The two women got up to go inside the house to look for it. Which leaves him alone outside with his uncle Ted. A bunglesome silence passed between them for neither would break the ice. More silence passed until the air suddenly smelled like rotten eggs; he looked sharply at Uncle Ted who shot him a glance before clearing his throat and looking up at the sky. He was about to cuss about uncle Ted’s unethical farting when his Grandma called from inside the house: “Ted! We’re leaving, say goodbye to your nephew and sister!” But uncle Ted did nothing of this. When uncle Ted got up from his chair, his nephew saw that he had left a phone behind. Still pissed off, he decided not to tell his uncle about it.

Later, when the visitors left, he got curious about his uncle’s phone. There was no passcode in it (he sort of expected it that a buffoon like his uncle would not think twice about security) and he could freely navigate all of its contents. Suddenly a familiar blue logo caught his eye. It was the Chatly app. He gave it a tap and inside were the details of his chatting history. He scanned the names until he saw HIS.

We all have our quirks. Some put the milk first before the cereal, and some like cats more than humans. If you think about, it’s pretty normal to be unique. But even if you are self-proclaimed nonconformist, there are simply standards we have to maintain when dealing with society such as not breaking the law for example. While it is not wrong to have that bit of weirdness in you, too much of something is never a good thing. Especially if you’re a fifty-eight year old obese, balding, smelly, virgin pretending to be a young woman half your age to lure unsuspecting boys on the internet.

Uncle Ted’s chat history showed that he is pretending to be a girl named Jen and that he has engaged in what they call nowadays as “sexting” with several young men. It suggested that he started the chats off with bold statements about himself to gain the attention of his victims. On one of these chats he introduces himself as a redhead with Irish heritage- “Kiss me I’m Irish!” uncle Ted says. He felt his stomach turn upon reading the threads wherein some of the young men uploaded pictures of their private parts for uncle Ted’s predatory eyes to claim. Some of these boys are not even older than fourteen according to what he has read.

He recalled the dream. The brunette. The burrito. The balding oaf who still lived with his mother. HIS uncle Ted.

Then he thought about himself. Rarely going outside the house. Living with his mom. No friends. Lurking the interwebs for potential sex-partners.

He put two and two together: what if I become like HIM? He lost it and went to the bathroom to throw up.

The very next day, he applied for a job that had the most possibility of human contact with it. Not that all the introverted and awkward are like uncle Ted, but still. 

With anonymity being a key feature in most online experiences, one can never tell who is who these days. He needs to log off now, and likewise, the hour is nigh for a proper introduction of himself— this time to the real world.