May 2, 2021, nighttime, me sitting lazily on my phone.

As usual, Instagram was my only hope during such a boring day.

I was just watching reels, and most of them were either really funny, or really cringey, the latter which I proceeded to scroll past as soon as I saw them. I didn't really expect anything else from this app, actually, because all I had on it were two groups - one being my eighth batch group and the second being my friends group, which consisted of only three members. So, what's new about Instagram? Absolutely nothing. I just stay here on this app since a few of my long-distance friends are here and because I want to be one of those Instagram popular kids with more than 100 followers. Currently, I had only 30-something. For a mere eighth grader, it was still quite high.

As I scrolled through the reels, more and more boredom started to enter my mind. Why can't I do anything else besides scrolling randomly? Ugh. Stupid app.

But that's when I noticed a notification from Instagram chats. Wait, chats?

"Hi"
By cra_zy_kid_

Huh? Who's this now? Another creep, or just another 'soulmate' of mine?

Without checking the message, I straight up went to his account and checked it out instead of replying to him. Hey, don't blame me, that's just what the internet makes us do.

Alright, it was a guy itself. His description included some random cliche quotes like 'Happiness never goes out of style', 'Fuck the bad vibes and chill', and so on, and most of his posts were nature photography except some, where he had taken some 'attitude' pictures of himself. He looked quite young. Well, definitely less than 18 years old.

On Instagram, if the person you're stalking doesn't have a lot of/no posted pics at all on their account, we have a much more easier way of finding their faces- tagged posts. These are posts where their friends/family members on another account tag them in their photos. This works well for ghosted accounts most of the time.

I checked his tagged posts and indeed, he had many. Most of them had names like he did, insane_girl, 07_prince_ etc. Maybe they were his relatives, like siblings or cousins.

Some posts included only adults and for a second I got worried, doubting if he was an adult as well and that his posts might just be by his brothers or when he was young. Fortunately, I found more pics leading to a conclusion that he looks about 15 and that the adults nearby were probably his relatives or older cousins. Well, a 15 year old isn't an adult or nearly one, so mostly he's unlikely to be a perverted guy. You can't be sure though... Out of experience, I knew that even premature kids or old, married people could be creeps - regardless of their gender, background and status. Some can be cured using the simplest catfishing medicines or pranks, but some require special verbal abuses and threats to stop harassing people on social media. Well, I was that 'catfisher' who used special techniques for creeps - an internet vigilante, my third purpose for logging into Instagram at 13. To a lot of you, I may sound like a young blooming teen who's just starting to get overwhelmed at everything that I see on social media, but trust me, this hobby of mine isn't mere play. I actually love doing this thing. I'm not scared of online idiots who are cowards in real life. Neither do I plan to block them or ignore them because they deserve a piece of my mind. Besides, unlike what Mia thinks, they can't really hack me or even know a bit of information about me except my name - I know enough and more about the internet to know this.

I've met a creep who was only 15, and he's even in my school - presumably, that is. That's a whole different story which I'll explain later, but I'll most likely use the same technique I used on him to get rid of this guy as well if he starts driving me crazy with all the cringey love and soulmate stuff. I do believe in soulmates, I mean, I even believe in ghosts, vampires, and werewolves - but not unicorns though. I hate that shit since the day I dreamed of a unicorn chasing me and making me jump over a cliff.

I know, I sound silly and I AM silly, because obviously, none of these exist. But it's just that I liked to think they did. Besides, even if soulmates did exist, then that means that everyone has a soulmate and is supposed to have a husband/boyfriend at least very lately, but how's that possible when there are thousands of people in the world who are single/aromantic/asexual and so on? Even I'm one such individual. I prefer focusing on my own life and career than on relationships. I'm asexual too, so I don't enjoy intimate relationships. The most I can go for is a loving hug and a forehead or cheek kiss. Those are pretty sweet and platonic.

I knew that I'll always be this way, because that's how I am. I'm only 13, yes, but I never developed those feelings of crush or infatuation. It's like, that romantic part of the mind just doesn't exist inside me. If I ever find a very nice guy and he's really sweet to me, like my friend Alan, even then, all I feel is a friendly/platonic bond and nothing more. Devyn calls me weird and hormone-less, while I just like to consider myself an asexual teen who likes to only watch or read romance and not actually experience it. I do like non-sexual relationships but that's basically what friendship is. So why waste my time on a relationship when I can have good, trustable friends and family?

Either way, I still like to think that a soulmate exists for everyone, including me. Maybe it's just that some people don't find them, or even if they do, they don't become a couple and instead become best friends or mere strangers. Example, me again. But who knows who my soulmate is, haha.

Wait a second, how did we even get here from our main topic?

After some moments of thought again, I opened and accepted his message request.

Then I asked "Hi, who's this?"

He replied almost immediately, as if he had kept the chat opened for all the time that I was stalking his posts.

He: lol

Lol? What's so funny about my question? For those of you who aren't obsessed to the internet, lol means 'laugh out loud'. I rarely used that word because I preferred 'lmao' - which means laugh my ass out. For me, that word sounded funnier than the other one.

Me: seriously, who's this?

I've got no time to waste on you, please. I'm just getting over another 15-year-old creep hitting on me as well as my friends. Just as I started to prepare myself for my next fake-account prank, he replied to me.

He: I used to be in ur school

...So? All my followers are from my school, or used to be there. That doesn't make you any special. But if you're aiming at creating company with me, like you know, socializing and stuff, then fine. I'm happy to have new friends. Otherwise, if there's more to it, get outta here.

Me: oh ok, in which school are you now?

I don't even care to know, actually, but I had to find some question to keep the chat going and figure out who this guy is. Maybe a little bit of curiosity actually sparked in me. Creeps don't usually make me curious about them but this guy didn't seem like such a person.

He: Ambridge high school

I don't even know which school that is, but okay. Maybe I've heard about it somewhere.

Me: do you know me?

It's after this question that I realized how dumb I sounded. Of course he must know me somehow, why else would he have messaged me? Dumb Rose.

He: no lol but I've seen you in old school.

Oh, so he doesn't know me other than the fact that he has seen me at school? That makes the chance of him being a creep even higher. Usually, our own classmates/schoolmates have less of a chance of being creepy to us because they meet us at school and know that they can get in real trouble if they're not careful enough.

And why does he have to use lol everywhere? Is he addicted to that or something? I think I should call him lolguy as a sort of nickname. Lol.

Me: oh. I haven seen you before.

He: I'm in 10th lol, when I was in your school I was in 7 or 8.

You don't remember if you were in my school when you were in seventh or eighth? And I thought I'm the one with Alzheimer's. I mean, even I changed from my old school to my current school back in fourth grade and now I'm in eighth, but I remember that very well and will never forget it, since that's how much it impacted my life in a lot of ways, both positive and negative. However, the feeling that he's another pervert slowly seemed to fade away with each passing chat. He didn't ask anything personal.

Me: oh ok, so you're 15?

I don't know why but I've a strict rule I made for myself that I won't talk to guys older than that. Maybe it's because that's the age when they're in tenth and then they pass on to eleventh? And I'm only 13, so I prefer to have friends who are at most two years lesser or more than I am. That means, kids around the age of 11-15. People below the age of 11 are normally not on Instagram or even if they are, they don't usually know how to initiate a chat. And older people usually won't find it comfortable being friends with a 13 year old girl on the internet, unless they're creepy pedophiles. I mean, adults can always just find friends their own age, why would they befriend a kid? If it was me, I certainly wouldn't.

He: yaa, wbu?
(Wbu stands for 'What about you?')

Whew! Just 15. That's a good sign, I guess. Wbu was something I didn't understand at first, but I googled its full form and found the meaning of yet another slang of the internet. Ah, what a mysterious world the internet is.

Me: 13, I'm in 8th.

He: oh nice

Nice? Thanks.

Me: you chat with every ex-schoolmate u follow?

Because why ever would he message me just because he saw me once - or maybe twice - at school? He may not even have seen the same girl sometimes, and weirder, I'm a girl who is not in his batch or grade. Then why did he message me? Usually, boys from our school have this habit of befriending only guys and not much girls, except some 1% guys who are sane and not sexist. You know. The ones who know that it's completely okay to be friends with the opposite gender. Maybe this lolguy is part of the other 1%. Well, I respect guys who aren't awkward with talking to girls. They are much more friendly and funny. But majority of Instagram, which consisted of creeps and perverts, didn't find any awkwardness in chatting with girls since they're hiding behind a mask called the 'internet' anyways. So they take it to a whole other level by sending inappropriate stuff to every girl they see.

Later on, we started chatting about random things like my enemy, whose name is Deserae, and about his enemy named Mary Rafael. I didn't know why but he randomly started this topic by asking me who the worst person I have met in life is. And to me, personally, Deserae was that person. She's my classmate and a kind of enemy who had been my friend sometimes. To be honest, our friend group never accepted her or even thought of her as a friend. The only thing she did in our group was to gossip about guys, other girls and backstab us. But she kept on clinging to us like a venomous snake and no matter how much we tried, she just wouldn't accept the fact that we hated her toxic personality. Crazykid, on the other hand, hated Mary Rafael for some 'very personal' reasons that he couldn't tell me yet. I just smirked at that; I could already guess the reason, buddy. Either she was your girlfriend earlier but she dumped you, cheated on you, or she was the reason for your girlfriend leaving you. 

He then complained about his swimming academy which doesn't have separate rooms for girls and boys to change and has the most weirdest rules ever. I just listened, slightly bored, because I couldn't relate to this topic in anyway and it was strange how he just started talking about his swimming school out of the blue. This is most definitely the weirdest guy I've ever met.

The latter was a pretty boring topic, but while talking about Deserae, I got quite interested because no other stranger on Instagram had ever asked me about my school rival. So, now quite into the chat unlike before, I told this guy all my reasons of hating this particular girl and how she treated me like shit till sixth grade. He seemed quite interested in it too. He agreed that she was arrogant and toxic, just like his enemy, Mary Rafael, who he referred to as a 'bad girl'.

His use of the word 'bad girl' amused me. Bad girl? Who ever uses that in this century? Mostly, people have a specific word for that, like an arrogant girl, or a spoilt brat, or something worse. The word I use for my rival is 'arrogant - spoilt - useless - toxic - show off - unfriendly'. It's not one word, but yeah, this is the minimum number of words I can find for her. She's just that bad. She may be young but the things she did to me and my friends are just unexplainable. She has even insulted the death of one of my other friends.

To leave the chat for some time - this guy loved to talk and that was evident from the way he never left the chat once - and also due to my curiosity, I searched up Mary Rafael in my Instagram and saw a girl with a gothic type of profile and description. Don't mistake me, I love the gothic style, but somehow, this girl just seemed plain cringey and like a show-off instead of actually gothic. She seemed inactive too; only one post, that which had been posted about one year ago, no tagged posts at all, no highlights or stories. An average number of followers and following. This was a very rare kind of phenomenon for someone like this on Instagram, because most people had at least two or three tagged posts and one highlight. But this girl seemed like a ghost - and that means an inactive person, according to social media terms.

Then, remembering that I had an unread message from lolguy, I left the girl's profile and checked it. It was just a bye, so I said the same and left as he liked my message right then.

I thought he was gone and wouldn't message me again. I hoped so, actually. Of course, I do love talking, but as I told before, why would he message me just because he saw me at school? It needs to have a particular reason. Since he's slightly older, the first reason I assumed was that he must be an internet predator targeting young kids too, or someone who has a crush on me even though that is highly unlikely. Then, from the way he chatted, I assumed that he probably wants someone to talk to and is very desperate about that that he even talked about completely random stuff to me. So he's either depressed or lonely. And well, if that was the reason, I was more than willing to help out. 

I wouldn't care less if it was a crush though. I'd just reject him, ask him if he would like to be a friend, and move on. I like to be a free single bird. 

However, none of these seemed to fit him somehow. He didn't seem to be depressed, he didn't seem like a fake account or a creep, and he didn't use a single lovey-dovey term during our conversation. The conversation actually seemed normal for once. And that was the weird thing, because usually, these online guys ended up being not normal and just plain weird or creepy. Chatting with a normal guy seemed like the weird thing now, damn, how the internet has changed me.

All I hoped for right now was that he never messaged me again, that he completely forgot or deleted his chat with me right afterwards. I know, I can just block him, but if I do that, I would be an idiot who's jumping to conclusions without even a little clue of what was actually going on. What if he really does want a good friend to talk to? Why should I be a stupid person assuming and jumping into conclusions? I'm the type of person who requires every little detail of a solution to a mystery and can't stop being curious. So, better I figure everything out before deciding whether or not I should keep chatting with him. Either way, I didn't specifically want him to message me again, because I just wasn't interested. 

Well anyways, guess who broke my hopes and returned the next day?