I would like to know your story. It can be as long or as short as you wish, 1 sentence or 5000 words.

Tell me about you and your life.

Pain. Torment. Agony. Rare rays of ho e that are s!uelched by the sadness of my life. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I lo#e and I die, but I still lo#e. I long for eyes. I long for time. I long for many things and here I ha#e the world. $hy am I not satisfied% Peo le smile. I can laugh. I hold back. $hy% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m 1'. I&#e had a boyfriend since I was a freshman in highschool. $e met online. (e li#es in Tennessee I li#e in )aryland. It sucks. I&m a lying to different colleges than he is. I want to break u before we go away, but he doesn&t. *ow I&m talking to this other guy and I&m starting to really like him, and I feel like such an asshole because I don&t want to break u with my boyfriend now. I&m a dick. idk. +n a ha ier note, I ha#e se#en best friends and they&re all the most lo#ely eo le. +ne&s named ,e!uoia and she&s nature"y and robably the most beautiful erson I&#e e#er met, but not that like, conformist beautiful. ,he&s -ust really naturally stunning. I ha#e another friend named Poo-a and she&s adorable and she&s Indian and we&#e become really close lately and that makes me ha y. And .ena was my first friend in highschool and I lo#e her dearly. And /abi is so interesting and she will grow u to be an incredible architect I&m sure of it. Timera&s got the best laugh in the whole world. 0mily doesn&t go to our school anymore but we see her as much as ossible. ,he&s the most down to earth erson I&#e e#er met. ,he&s got a lo#ely family. And 1ath is wonderful. ,he&s thoughtful and she has a great smile. ,he&s our newest addition to the clan and she fits right in. ,he&s going to sa#e the world. And that&s my life right about now. I want to know your story. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I lo#e music. 0#er since i was born, i icked u the guitar and learned so much. I don&t know what i would do without it, but i fear for the future for -obs and such cause the ay isnt well. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born in 1ansas as a young girl who has a knack for grammar and well"regarded logic. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&#e ne#er really been ha y but I&#e also ne#er been in great ain. I -ust kee mo#ing along on my own. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was raised in a nice family and lo#e life. (a iness is my goal I like to stay ositi#e. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" if i had known it would#e been this de ressing when i was younger i would#e sto ed li#ing long ago """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m su er melancholic and I might kill myself, but not yet. I&m sticking it out for now. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" my life was shattered it was glass it was brittle it cut it hurt it bleed it ended and it was o#er """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I fuck bitches and get aid """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" that would take too long """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

)y family came to America from )arikina 2ity, a city in the )anila )etro Area of the Phili ines, in the early eighties. /ast forward a few years, and I get born. )y mother married a white guy, so that makes me half white. +ther than the erfect skin tone and ama3ing cheekbones you get from mi4ing *ordic and ,outheast Asian blood, being mi4ed"raced isn&t all that great. As a kid, I was too /ili ino to fit in with the white kids, but I was too white to fit in with the /ili ino kids. ,o now I don&t really ha#e a cultural identity. It&s fun to lay the 5race card5 though. Anyway, my father killed himself when I was one. That&s what I&#e been told, anyway. )y mom says he was murdered. A while ago I tried to find an obituary online to find out what really ha ened, but I didn&t find anything. Regardless, I ne#er knew my father, ob#iously. 6ut honestly I think it&s better this way. I went to 2atholic schools all my life, from kindergarten all the way until I dro ed out of college. It wasn&t too bad. Actually it was, but that&s because there were a few e4tenuating circumstances. 6ut I don&t really want to get into that. ,o now I&m here. An unem loyed college dro out. I&m trying to get money to go back to school again but I&#e a lied for like 70 -obs and nobody&s called me back yet. It&s all good though. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" It could ha#e been. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I wish I had the atience and moti#ation to write you an acce table story of my miserable self, but i cant and i wish i could but all i am is 8isa ointing. ,orry for the bad grammar, my foot is cram ing u ainfully and I&m using one hand to get it less ainful and writing with the other. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m currently an ambitious erson held back by age, and being stuck in small town, 9,A. I&m generally ha y but sometimes I feel lonely. I like to meet new eo le, but when your graduating class is about :0 eo le and the whole high school is like 700 some, that&s kind of hard to do. I&#e o#ercome mild de ression. (a#e gone through and still go through bouts of bulimia. I&m honestly kind of lonely. 6ut no matter, because I&m a strong willed erson. I&ll get to my dream college soon. (o efully to 2alifornia. I fell in lo#e the minute the state came into #iew out my lane window ;< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" /or a while I thought mostly about death and sadness but these days I think maybe if I started wearing a little bow in my hair I could get a thing started it&d be like ants was for women. This girl, this coworker, we&#e been bonding a lot o#er the ast cou le weeks and I don&t know what it is about her or the things she does but she makes me feel things and I don&t know what they are and I wrote a haiku about it called )issletoe =$orking title< and it goes like; I don&t understand > *e#er felt like this before > ?ou need to sto it """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2hildhood was terrible and fun. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am working to sa#e to catch a train to s eak to the Italians. $e&re gonna arty and arty and arty until we can&t stand u and then we&re gonna arty lying down if you know what I mean. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 6orn near the sea. Tra#elled u a mountain to li#e among rednecks =e4aggeration<. 0ducated at a ri#ate school. ,hy, intro#erted. .iked com uters and com uter rogramming@ was the only erson at my school interested in that stuff. ,till made one really good friend and a bunch of others. I only really kee in contact with the first. .iked a girl once. *ot sure how much of it was infatuation, how much was my friends& ushing or how much of it was actually genuine liking. Asked her out in the most awkward way ossible. Re-ected. 8idn&t gi#e u . 6ecame obsessed with the idea of liking the girl, not so much e#en her anymore. 2ame crashing back down to 0arth when I o#erheard her telling other eo le how stressed out my ad#ances made her. /elt like scum.

6ut I learnt a lot and e#entually a ologised. ,he forga#e me. $e don&t talk much but we&re on ositi#e terms. $ent away to uni#ersity near the sea. 8id com uter science. .earnt ele#enty billion rogramming languages. )et kindred s irits. Thought I might try my luck with a girl erfect in e#ery way, but someone else got there first. Areat friends with both of them now. 8on&t like her in that way any more, e4ce t for some days. ,he hassles me about getting a girlfriend@ kind of ironic how I always tell I ha#en&t liked anyone since getting to uni. Trying to do well enough on my e4ams to get into ostgrad. (o e I make it. Think I will. .earning to dri#e a bit late =I&m not #ery good at it<. $ondering about the future. +ne year of ostgrad, and then the real world. (a#e a few issues. 8on&t ut enough effort into things so I can tell myself la3iness was the only reason for my oor results, so I can tell myself I&m the smartest man ali#e and ne#er disco#er what my limits actually are. ,ome social an4iety and o#erthinking. 6it of confidence troubles. 6ad osture. /ather has bi olar. $e think. (e faked taking an o#erdose of slee ing ills once. /amily curse "" my great grandfather, my grandfather and now my father has become utterly intolerable to be around and emotionally abusi#e towards his wife at middle age. )other should lea#e him but doesn&t for the sake of myself and my sibling. /eel bad about that and for not feeling bad enough about it. /rightened of becoming like my father. *ot o#eremotional "" a good sign. )ade a conscious effort to kee tem er in check since a young age. Think I&ll be alright. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )ost eo le, when they die, they stay that way. I don&t seem to follow that rule, as far as I can tell. I was stillborn, dead for four different reasons, and somehow I&m still walking around. I&#e seen some shit, and I&#e had some good times. If you&re interested, I&ll tell you my story in a con#ersation. I don&t like ha#ing a one"sided s iel that nobody e#er answers. Talk to me, and I&ll talk to you. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I lo#e my boyfriend and my cat. I want a brownie, because I ran out. I lo#e life thanks to one man who made life ama3ing for me. And the 3ombie a ocaly se will ha en. 5 &*uff said.5 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I couldn&t imagine life at 17@ and then I was 75. I&m so slow, I didn&t e#en realise my friends were outgrowing me until they&d been gone almost 10 years. Then I saw that my own body inside and out had outgrown my mind@ I didn&t en-oy laying retend anymore, or s inning in circles, or making new friends and trying new things. All that outer rigidity set in, and I didn&t notice. I used to think this was an inherent retardation@ but I did it to myself; instead of becoming strong alone or with friends and family when faced with the world I ran away from e#erything, ut aside com le4 emotions and con#inced they were the risable irrational rebellious tendencies of all those teenage beha#iours I seethed at so much. As I aged those old 5 ure5 emotions had become stagnant@ war ed rotten and stale. Bacant and #acuous, I drowned into in fiction and fantasies, to the oint where &the feels& were daily synthetic emotional rations I cra#ed and built u tolerances to, and my nati#e imagination made my real ears and eyes feel gau3e"ridden. I no longer had regrets of missed action, because my imaginary ad#entures could always not only do grander things, but run arallel. *o fourth dimensional constraints, I would be in multi le fantasies, co"o ting eachother or stealing from flashes of reality whene#er the rule of cool or drama or funny or fun or scary a lied, and generate ideas those few friends who ke t me around thought were so great they should be stories. *o one knows the real anyone inside, so they don&t know why I&m not a rolific writer@ don&t know I ne#er sto ed running@ my highschool nickname too accurate for them to realise. ,o used to fantasy, my dreams are little more than freehand sessions, so much so I

ne#er realise they&re dreams anymore, e#en when I do realise they&re dreams. )y mother was wrong, I A) still that scared little child@ but three failed children would be too cruel to her, so I run from her too. Pity is for the innocent, and e#en though it would be long and ainful and full of failures and re-ections and abandonments, I could change all of it and be the erson I wanted to be. 6ut, e#en if it were tem orary, I&d ha#e to gi#e u this li#ing imagination, and would ha#e to sacrifice time, energy, and cognition to na#igate that difficult ath full of holes and erha s ne#er find the right choices for the goal I &think& I ha#e@ and com ared to a 10 dimensional dream world where energy and matter e4change and roliferate without consideration of entro y or efficiency, I retty u my la3y fear as a concern for ma4imum out ut for in ut, and e#eryday choose to dream the life. And though alone and uninformed, I am not uni!ue in this@ neither the ma-ority nor the minority, because there are no ercentages when there is only 1. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" my life is com licated -ust like e#erybody else. i&m at a low oint now but i&m in the rocess of making it better e#en though it&s hard. i know i&m being #ague but i don&t like telling eo le my roblems because i don&t want anyone&s ity and i don&t want to bring anyone else down. i&m a eo le leaser and tend to lea#e myself out and then i ay for it by e#erything to ling o#er on me. i&m trying to take care of me first and it&s hard for some eo le because suddenly they think i&m selfish. no, i&m -ust not waiting on you hand and foot any longer. it&s hard. i like to hel but i ha#e to hel myself first. i want to work on not feeling guilty when i&m taking care of myself when i instincti#ely feel like i should be hel ing someone else instead. anyway, yeah. that&s a #ague art of me. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m tired I&m tired I&m tired I&m tired I&m tired I&m really tired. I am #ery #ery #ery tired. I can&t stand it sometimes. Cust so tiring all the time, and nothing I ha#e nothing. There is nothing in my heart you know. It hurts there is -ust nothing there """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m a troubled young man that is not interested in getting any hel . """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" its short """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" It sucked. It doesn&t anymore. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born in the )iddle 0ast. $hen I was about three, my arents left for America to attend college and find good -obs. At four, they brought me o#er and I began learning 0nglish. At si4, my arents found a Russian community and introduced myself to the children of their new friends, who were se#eral years older than me. Though I was young and couldn&t understand sarcasm #ery well, they took me under their wings and made me into the &don&t hate " tolerate&, sarcastic friend I am today. 9nfortunately, they were in their teen angst hases when this ha ened. The fun times were highlighted by tales of cutting and smoking. I was young and couldn&t understand #ery much of it e4ce t that my most fa#orite, coolest eo le in the world did it, which must mean it was awesome, too. 8rugs didn&t a eal to me, so I didn&t seek them out. The self"harm intrigued me, howe#er, so I tried it. I didn&t feel anything e4ce t an annoying stinging, so I didn&t do it again...until )? angsty reteen>teen hase, which was rife with cutting and anore4ia. *ow I&m si4teen. I&m ha y, outgoing, and on the (onors track. I&m ho ing to get into a college

early and want to become a forensic athologist. )y dream is to own a big, three"floor house and ha#e a dog or two. ,o there&s my story. $hat&s yours% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m in college and am lo#ing it but i slack off way to much. I was engaged when I was 1D but my e4"fiance left me E days before out 1 year engagement. Then two months later i started to talk to someone else and this other guy i was scared of dating. $e only kissed when we were -ust talking. Cust a little kiss. $ell in se tember my e4 started talking to me and since i felt comfortable i got back with my e4 and we were together for only : days because i still was te4ting the other dude e#en though he knew i was back with him and its not like we were te4ting anything bad but my e4 was getting -ealous and we got into a fight and i told him i cant do this again and broke u with him so he ulled a knife out on me and then i finally got him to lea#e. That night the first erson i called was ste#e because mike said he was going to his work to beat him u witch ne#er ha en and that whole night i cried not cause i was sad he was out of my life but because i was scared and ste#e talked to me the whole night -ust trying to be a good guy and not e#en talking about being with me but making sure i was okay which was nice. If you want more let me know... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Abused, 9sed, (urt and lo#es a #ery wonderful man named Austin, that doesn&t want to commit to me and might not e#en like me, but he is my e#erything. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Po a s!uat, son. ...Fcricket cricketF +kay I got nothing. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I should be drawing.

I&m stoned. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )essage me so I can write it at a more con#enient time. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ?ou win some, you lose some. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i do drugs. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i am a bear. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I like dismemberments """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $ell, I kind of -ust started ty ing and this is what I came out with. *ot !uite 5000 words, but a few thousand at least. It kind of -ust follows my thoughts so ho efully it&s not too confusing. And if you do read it, I ho e it does something for you and it&s not -ust a waste of time. I guess I&ll start with what I see as the beginning. Cunior year of high school. , anish class. There are....: eo le in the class. The teacher is basically not e#en !ualified to be a teacher. I learned nothing. 6ut I liked most of the eo le in the class, and it was fun. Then at semester, G eo le dro ed it. It was me, 2hristian, and another kid who is not im ortant. I don&t know e4actly when it ha ened, but at some oint , anish became the one thing I looked forward to e#ery day. 6ecause that was the E5 minutes a day that I got to hang out with 2hristian. $e basically didn&t do anything , anish related. Random kid talked to the teacher, and 2hristian and I did all sorts of awesome stuff. ,o ya, I liked that a whole bunch, and it was #ery u setting when he was gone, and I&m sure it sucked for him when I was gone, but we both -ust laughed at each other and were generally mean about it, as with most things. ,o, through , anish class, we became better and better friends. ,ummer that year was -ust like any other, e4ce t for my growing affinity towards

2hristian. I took care of my little sister all summer, so I only saw him when I took her or my brother to swim team ractice, and at swim meets. *ot #ery often, but it was all good. Then school started and I got to see him e#ery day guaranteed again. The only class I had with him was band, and I could only really talk to eo le sitting ne4t to me in band, so I started li#ing for lunch. /or a while, it was a rocess I went through e#ery day to try to figure out where to sit so he would sit ne4t to me. I was a senior, so I would be one of the first eo le at the table, and he was one of the last. It was sad when it didn&t work out. 0#entually, eo le started sitting in more or less the same seat e#ery day. That made my life easier. Anyway, as time went on, we got closer and closer. And since one of his better friends was 2arl, I became better friends with 2arl, too. I had known for a while that 2arl liked me a lot, and finally that fall he asked me out. I told him I -ust didn&t feel that way about him, and it seems he&s okay with that since we are still #ery good friends to this day. Anyway, 2hristian and 2arl became my two best friends as I grew a art from the friends I had had since 5th grade or so. )y arents said I abandoned e#eryone for them, but the truth is they all went out and got boyfriends and so we -ust both kind of abandoned each other. In the meantime, my feelings toward 2hristian were getting stronger e#ery day. I talked to my girl friends about him one day. 52ounting on the ossibility that 2hristian&s not gay...5 )e; 5I&m retty ositi#e he&s not.5 =I was. Partly from denial, ob#iously, but also because he didn&t hide any of his 1esha>unicorn>glitter liking or any other !ualities that ga#e him away. And he denied that he was gay. ,o I figured if he was and didn&t want eo le to know, he would work harder to not be so ob#ious. Anyway, where was I%< /riends; 5$ell, would you wanna go out with him%5 )e; 5$ell, yaH5 $hich was #ery e4citing for them because of reasons such as I&#e ne#er e#en close to had a boyfriend before. ,o. This all seemed to be going #ery well. $hen that fateful day came. It was in 8ecember, I know that much. 2hristian te4ts me...he needs to tell me something. +kay, I say, go ahead. I&m gay... $(AT% *o. I&m in denial. I had made u my mind com letely that he wasn&t. I decided it was a -oke. I took about 10 minutes to answer because I didn&t know what to say. I don&t e#en remember what I ended u saying. ,omething stu id, no doubt. I kee talking to him and it finally dawns on me that this is real. And I cry more than I ha#e in a long time. And then it&s fine. Areat, really that&s he&s finally told someone. =(e told 2arl that day, too.< I&m ha y. And the rest of the school year is the best year of my life so far. Then in summer, towards the end, I start ha#ing roblems with him. I for some reason e4 ect that we will hang out, usually because we&#e already decided we would, or maybe sometimes because I decided we would, and he won&t. *ow, I think it&s im ortant to say that we were together for some reason most days that summer. 6ut then he would be watching a mo#ie with Tanner or dri#ing around with 1allie and Tanner, or always doing something will 1allie or Tanner. And I would ne#er be in#ited. I -okingly accused him of being in a secret cult or something. And I don&t think I&m getting across e4actly how this went down, because I don&t think I robably remember it correctly. ?ou see, I&#e since decided that all the unha iness I thought he was causing me, was -ust from the way I thought of him. I ne#er got o#er him. In fact, I still ha#en&t. And by that summer, with all the time we&d s ent together, I basically thought of him as my boyfriend. 6ut only the latonic arts. And ob#iously he ne#er thought of me that way, art of me wants to say he was sick of hanging out with me all the time, but I can&t tell how much of that is -ust my aranoia, and most truthfully, he -ust had other friends besides me. I wasn&t the most im ortant thing in his life. The roblem there was, he was the most im ortant thing in mine. I li#ed for him. Anyway, I&m now in college. I don&t know what would ha#e ha ened if I were a year younger and still in school with him. I can&t say I&m ositi#e it would ha#e been all good. /rom what he says, he misses me a whole bunch, but I&m sure I miss him more. I freaked out at him after one weekend when I was home, because I though we would hang out, and then he didn&t answer his hone all night. I robably freaked him out with my cra3iness. I ha#e to restrain myself from te4ting him e#ery 7 minutes because he doesn&t re ly and I get sad. I want to tell him how I feel, assuming he doesn&t already know, I ha#e no clue, but I&m terrified of doing that. I also want to ask him how he feels about me. If my aranoia that he doesn&t really like me at all anymore and -ust wishes I would lea#e him alone is based on any fact at all. I ho e to do this when I&m home ne4t week for Thanksgi#ing, but knowing me, it won&t ha en. +h ya, and ne4t year I&m going to school in the same town as him. 6ut guess who else is% 1allie. )aybe. ,he&s not for sure yet. That makes me ha y because I do lo#e 1allie, but also not so ha y because my cra3y -ealous side wants 2hristian to my self. +h ya, did I mention I get really su er -ealous of eo le that get to be with him sometimes% I ha#e so many irrational feelings about him

that it scares me sometimes. 6ut I think the only way to sto it would be to cut him com letely out of my life, and guess what% ,o not ha ening in a million years. ,o ya, there&s my story. 9nresol#ed as of yet, but ho efully something good ha ens some day. And no, he is actually not my entire life if you were wondering. This isn&t meant to be my life story, -ust a story within my life. (o efully it didn&t bore you too much, but thanks for letting me think it all through by ty ing it at you. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m in high school. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am a otato. I otate. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i ha#e a cat """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 8idnt know what i wanted to be, was #ery shy, regretful. now i ha#e a dream, random and outgoing and ne#er look back in the ast. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $hat do you wanna know. $here should i start% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i. like. bacon.;< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&#e forgotten my story. It used to be interesting """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y life is not the best it can be. It is sad and lonely and full of cra y things. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" awesome """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $ow. ?our !uestion reminds me of the boy I -ust recently sto ed seeing. (is name is 8an, he lets me call him 8anny. (e&s got this beautiful red hair, he&s :&15 and makes me feel small when I hug him but ne#er treats me like I&m little. (e&s two years younger than me, but I ne#er saw that difference. $e became friends within the first two weeks of college, and what 8anny does with eo le he&s intrigued by is he asks them to tell him their stories. (e listened to mine all the way through, no interru tions, e#en at the scary arts. I lo#e him so much. 6ut my life story isn&t about him. I lo#e my family. I&m sitting in my li#ing room right now and all of us =minus my sister, who goes to bed early< are sitting here. )y arents are sitting with my brother while he watches Alee " humoring him. And I&m here on Two 2ans. I&m 1I. I&#e been obsessed with the same college for three years but I recently had to go on a medical lea#e, which lasts for the remainder of this semester as well as the ne4t one. I&m mo#ing to a new city in a few weeks, to li#e with a good friend, take a cou le classes at community college, and work on myself through thera y. I lo#e to read, I lo#e to write. I lo#e to take ictures. I don&t make friends #ery easily, but the friends I ha#e I trust with e#erything, and would be there for at the dro of a hat. All I really want to do is make a difference. And I always wanted to do something big, to contribute. I ne#er thought the &touch one life and they&ll touch many more& kind of thing was enough. I want to -oin the Peace 2or s someday. I want to ro#ide (IB>AI8, education in rural 2hina. I lo#e Asia. I lo#e 2hina so much. I lo#e to tra#el. It&s one of my main assions in life. )useums are beautiful to me. 6ut what I really want to do is become a hos ital cha lain. I&m a 9nitarian 9ni#ersalist =you can Aoogle it< and I&d lo#e to ro#ide interfaith ser#ices to des erate eo le, eo le who need them the most. I want to see that #ulnerability when someone is fearing for their life, or the life of their family members. I&#e had trouble with boys. I lo#e them too dee ly, I trust them too much. It destroys me sometimes. Right now is one of those times. It kills me to be alone, I always need to know concretely that someone lo#es me. I miss 8anny. I miss my friends in college. I don&t think they miss me. I know 8anny does, but he

can&t be with me, for his own reasons. I&m in a #ery lonely state. I&m at home, sitting around feeling useless. I&#e a lied to community college, I&m working things out with my friend, but for now I&m not doing anything with my life. And that kills me. I need to feel like I&m contributing, or I feel entirely worthless. Right now I&m not contributing to anything, and that&s really hard. I lo#e being home, I really do, but not under these circumstances. )y mom says I&m an em ath. ,he says it&s one of the strengths I was born with. I ha#e a natural ability to em athi3e with eo le, to the e4treme. I take in mo#ies #ery intensely, which is why I could ne#er stomach a horror mo#ie. 0#erything becomes so real to me. $hen I&m with a friend who needs someone to listen to them, my own self gets turned off " I am com letely engulfed in them and their struggles. This is what got me into trouble with 8anny, and a lot of my ast boyfriends. I gi#e too much, and e4 ect it back when most eo le can&t gi#e like I can. I -ust want to find someone who&s there for me. .ike I&#e said, it hurts so much for me to feel alone. 6oyfriends were always a reliable sign that someone lo#ed me, and I&#e been without one for three months. I know that&s unhealthy, to see it that way. I&m working things out. I know I&ll robably ne#er get my chance to actually be with 8anny, and I&m not sure how I feel about that. $e had such an intense connection at the beginning. 6ut he&s right, things weren&t working out. It&s -ust that, I&#e gi#en him e#erything. I kissed him all o#er. I sle t ne4t to him for weeks. I&#e ne#er seen a man naked, e4ce t for him. And he&s beautiful. (e&s heart"breakingly beautiful. I don&t know. Things are hard, but they&re looking u more than they ha#e in years, in my whole life robably. I&m determined to feel better. Things ha#e to get better. I can do this for myself. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was harassed in school. It lowered my self esteem and I had no friends. ThenI started cutting. 6ut I transferred schools and started going to church so things are better now. my dad died last year, oct 70, and (e was nuts. (e had multi le ersonality disorder, ocd, schi3o hrenia, synesthisa, and was addicted to se#eral drugs was an alcoholic. )y mom has had cancer three times. )y sister married a really bad man, and I&m trying to mo#e on in life... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,9P0R2A.I/RAAI,TI20J.IA.I8+2I+9, ;8 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i was born. my arents di#orced. i dro ed out of highschool. i had a daughter. now i own my own buisness """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" .aid back and I get laid. 0nd of story. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" It&s no sur rise to me I am my own worst enemy, """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born, I e4ist, I wish to die. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born, I li#ed, I&l die. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m the oldest child in a family of ' including myself and my arents are de#out mormons. I struggled with self"loathing and de ression until I mo#ed out at 1' for college. I started dating my girlfriend then =I&m a girl< which forced me to decide between her and my church. I&m still dating her and feeling consistently ha ier than e#er in my life after lea#ing my arents& church. *ow a lot of my life is secret from my arents because I&m still financially de endent on them and it&s a lot to worry about on to of my u coming graduation and finding a -ob>mo#ing out. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" once u on a time I was born. +ne day I will die. but until then I will li#e ha ily e#er after. the end. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Too la3y. Tell me yours """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m -ust a little worried about my future. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I like wearing my boots. I ha#e a air of work boots, two airs of combat boots, a air of hiking boots and a air of harness boots.

I only wear boots. 6ut sometimes I wear other kind of shoes, but +*.? if they are from someone else. /or e4am le, this one day I went rollerskating with some friends. At the skate rental, when I was taking the skates off, instead of retrie#ing my own shoes, I took the sneakers of a friend and ut them on. (e was forced to wear my work boots and find me. Really fun. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" There&s a billion cha ters, so I&ll -ust go with one. 2ha ter 9nknown number; )y brother I lo#e immediate family a lot. )om, 8ad Ryan and 2harisse are my best friends. 6ut Ryan, my older brother. (e&s my su erhero. )y entire life has been influenced by him. $hen I was younger I thought he was the coolest erson in the entire world. =I look back now, and he was actually retty weird< )y first word was because of him. ?ou know at the beginning of ,onic for ,ega Aenesis how it kinda sings 5,e"Aa5% (e layed it enough that 5sega5 would be my first word. I didn&t get into 6ackstreet 6oys and *sync at all. To this day I still don&t know any of there songs. =I was 5 when boybands became a thing<. $hy% 6ecause my brother was listening to music from #ideo games. ,o started my weird taste in music. (e decided to be a youth e4change student for a year to Taiwan% $hat do I do% The same. I s ent a year of my teenage life in India, going to high"school and li#ing life there. All because of him. Anyway, you get the oint. ,o my brother lo#es to tra#el. (e can&t really stay in one lace. And the roblem is, e#erytime I get acce t and learn how to deal with him li#ing on in the same house as me, he gets u and goes e#en further. /irst is was Taiwan, then it was college not in my city, then it was knowing that he wouldn&t be coming home because he had ro osed to his girlfriend, then it was li#ing in Ca an for two years. And that leads me u to now. I -ust -ust acce ted that he&d be gone for only one more year then he&d be back home, and there would be a chance we would li# together " de ending where his fiancee got into grad school. 6ut, a cou le of weeks ago, he messaged me sayign that he broke u with 8ani and would be staying in Ca an for another year, and then robably mo#ing to Taiwan after that. $hich means he&ll robably settled in Taiwan, because he lo#es that country more than his first one. (e&ll settle, and marry a girl there, and then ha#e babies, and I&ll ne#er see my brother again. Really% (ow you gonna do a sista like that% I&m angry. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&d rather hear about yours """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,treet lights " 1anye $est Pretty much sums it u """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

I su ose that I was born into an u er"middle class family, was #ery creati#e and intelligent all my life, but ne#er #ery res onsible... =I got a G1 on the A2T my first time, without studying, but I got only slightly better than a#erage grades in school< I got ec3ema in high school... it was torturous. I&#e ne#er been so scared or frustrated. It was #ery se#ere. It stole my slee , consigned me to taking an hour long bath e#ery day, and changed the way I think about almost e#erything. ,ometime before this, my arents were fighting, and broke u . I was glad to ha#e them a art from each other... their fights were difficult to deal with. I hated my dad, and #owed ne#er to become anything like him. 8uring most of high school, I was dating a girl named 1atie. ,he was e#erything to me... $e were so u set when I was going to go away to college. ,he was at a nearby college, and commuted, but I didn&t get acce ted to the nearby college I signed u for, and ended u going to one that was 700 miles away. ,he and I had a long distance relationshi , and talked on the hone for an hour or so many days. The longest talks were generally arguments. I had sworn to her before lea#ing that I would marry her someday. I also said that I would come back to her and transfer to a different college. $e saw each other from time to time, but there was a month or so in between each time. I e#entually fell in lo#e with my cam us and my friends, and I told her that I was not lanning to transfer back home. $hen I came back from my first year of college, I was ha y. 6ut after a week, 1atie and I decided that we weren&t working out together. $e broke u . It was tough... we&d been together for G and a half years, and we were each other&s first dates. $e had been #ery hysical, but had not e#er made lo#e. I reali3ed after breaking u with her, what a horrible idea it was to be with her, at least o#er the last cou le of years. I thought I really lo#ed her, but all we did was fight, really. $e had all sorts of good times, but they didn&t make u for the differences in our desires. I couldn&t handle being with her. 0arlier in my first year of college, I gained a friend. (e seemed so cool to me. I was in awe of him. I layed chess with him e#ery day, and went out with him as much as ossible. (e failed out of school. (e mo#ed away in the middle of a semester. (is failure woke me u , and allowed me to turn my horrible grades into bad grades. It was a #ast im ro#ement@ I don&t know where I would be if he didn&t lea#e. (is girlfriend was so u set that he was gone. I had s ent hours e#ery day with her. I felt as if I was the one who was su osed to be there for her. I stayed with her long into each night. $e s ent time in a dorm basement, watching anime and mo#ies, and laying #ideo games on our com uters. $e grew into the best of friends. It caused roblems in my relationshi with 1atie. I was defiant, claiming that there was nothing between us, and that such a latonic relationshi was not a danger. It wasn&t. The farther I got from 1atie, the more I grew close to the other girl, Amber. As I became unable to de end on 1atie, I started to de end on Amber to talk to. $hen 1atie and I were at our lowest oint, I once ended a long and emotional argument by saying that I was late for calling Amber. $hen I broke u with 1atie, I started to think about how she had been wrong for me, and what the correct kind of girl for me would look like. The more I thought about this, the more it looked like Amber. I mentioned this once to Amber, and she acce ted it. Amber and I had not considered each other before I broke u with 1atie. ,uddenly, we both were interested in each other. A week after I broke u with 1atie, I asked Amber out. ,he didn&t understand what I was saying, and changed the to ic of con#ersation. I attended a concert, and the music fueled my emotions. I decided that I would certainly ha#e Amber. $hen I came out of the orchestra concert, I recei#ed a message from Amber, saying that she was

interested in being with me. I was ecstatic. ,he had heard about my feelings and intentions from a mutual friend, and felt bad that she didn&t reali3e that I was after her hand. +nce she found out, she gladly took it. Asking her out has been the best decision of my life. The ne4t year was ama3ing. I did catch a horrible disease and was bedridden for weeks. Then I returned to school, where I took a limited number of classes as I continued to reco#er. Amber and I were growing closer e#ery day. I got my feelings caught u on another girl. 1at. ,he was attracti#e in many ways, and had many issues. I sought to resol#e them. )y feelings got in the way of my relationshi with Amber, es ecially gi#en that Amber was li#ing a half hour away from me o#er this semester. The feelings I de#elo ed about 1at were com licated by a mental instability that was a result of my reco#ery from mononucleosis. =mono was only half of the disease... the other was an unbearably ainful skin infection caused by the mono and my e3cema< Amber came back to my school. $e now li#ed a minute&s walk from each other... but really, she stayed with me at all times. It was a great time. $e drifted away from 1at, as we saw that 1at was tem eramental and com le4 to deal with. $e started to hang out with a mutual friend of 1at&s, )egan. $e started hanging out with )egan on a day that we tried to #isit 1at. ,he wasn&t around, but )egan was at 1at&s room. $e watched a mo#ie with )egan and 1at&s roommate. After we left, 1at accused )egan of stealing candy =it had only fallen behind a bed<. The dis ute turned into an unreasonable argument, and we learned that being near 1at was too difficult. $e began to hang out with )egan all the time. At this oint, I looked back at my life, and reali3ed I was allergic to chocolate. I sto ed eating chocolate altogether, and my e3cema im ro#ed by many, many times. It was a blessing. As such, I was able to sto taking the owerful yet e4 ensi#e and side"effecti#e allergy ills I was taking. They sto ed calming me, and I became worried about many things. I looked at )egan, and started to think about how she was better than Amber in so many ways. I started to wonder if I&d be ha ier with )egan. $hen I became so moody, I met with Amber, and bowed at her feet. I didn&t feel worthy of s eaking with Amber. I e4 lained that I had become fearful that Amber was not the best for me, and that I didn&t know what it meant I should do. Amber offered owerful words of wisdom, and ad#ised me to calmly continue my relationshi with her, and obser#e the way I felt about each one. Amber&s com osure =though she was wee ing< was commendable. I began taking a different, less harmful allergy ill. )y moods returned to normal. I was totally o#er the idea of anyone besides Amber. I ha#e fond memories of the rest of that semester. ,ummer hit, and this time I was not leased about it. I s ent 10,000,000 seconds waiting for the school year to resume. I talked to Amber e#ery single day. I talked to other friends, occasionally, but I s ent most of my time with friends from back home. I became much closer friends with one of my old friends, and I remained great friends with my longest friend. =Actually, I had ignored him o#er the G.5 years I was with 1atie. I felt so sorry, but he acce ted my a ology without com laint. I was humbled and immensely thankful.< It&s said that you don&t know a erson until you break u with them. Perha s that&s true. 6ut I think that when you break u with a erson, you forget so much about the way you felt about them. $hen the ne4t school year ha ened, I arri#ed to school before Amber. I s ent time with )egan. ,he was... ri#eting. ,he had cut her hair... I don&t think anyone en-oys her hair as much as I do.

,he was so fun... so e4citing... so attracti#e. I wasn&t ready for that kind of attraction. I des aired that I couldn&t ha#e )egan. I knew that e#en if I broke u with Amber, )egan wouldn&t ha#e me. )egan would be too u set that I let Amber down. I&m glad... )egan wouldn&t be the kind of girl she is if she didn&t #alue herself well enough to kee such heartless -erks away from herself. I was so u set while I waited for Amber to return to me. I was ashamed of the way I felt... I knew that since I had betrayed my feelings for Amber so harshly, I wouldn&t be able to be with Amber. Amber arri#ed, and I told her about e#erything. Amber and I do not kee any secrets from each other. $e are based on a full trust. +ther cou les who belie#e that it&s im ortant to sustain the relationshi by kee ing secrets are totally wrong. Amber and I did e#erything right by confessing e#erything to each other. Amber... Amber acted as the aragon of emotional strength. I don&t know what she said, but her words were dri ing with wisdom. ,he cried, of course, but she calmed me and consoled me. I saw that she was worth being near, and I decided that I couldn&t break u with Amber at this oint. I lo#ed her so much. The fear that another was better than her wasn&t enough of a reason to lea#e her. If I found someone better than her for me, I&d ha#e taken them. 6ut I knew that I wouldn&t be able to confirm that there was someone like that at a rice worth breaking u with Amber o#er. I&m so glad she acce ted me. That #ery night, we #isited )egan, and s ent hours with her. I can&t imagine another girl who could hear that I was so attracted to )egan that I had to break u with them, and then s end time with )egan right afterwards. ,he really trusted me. $e had a beautiful trust between us. I e#en s ent many, many hours alone with )egan, with the full knowledge that she and I wouldn&t be disturbed. I didn&t e#en consider betraying Amber. ,he was absolutely right to trust me. The third year was not my fa#orite. .ife was not as con#enient as it once had been. )y familiar friends had been scattered to the wind, finding residence all o#er the lace. It was harder to s end time with friends. Amber and I e#entually s ent all our a#ailable time with )egan. +h, the anime we watched together. There were many. $e became obsessed with )egan, seeking her fa#or, and trying to figure out e#erything there is to know about her. Amber and I e#en decided that we would be interested in a relationshi with )egan, together. $e wanted her to feel as one with us as we felt with each other. $e wanted to share e#erything with her, and to see the beaming light of her gratitude. Perha s we desired too much. $e ne#er made such an ad#ance on her, but we tried to be as close as ossible. $e e#en made an agreement to li#e together the ne4t year. At one oint, )egan told us that she wanted to li#e a art from us. ,he s oke as if she had already made lans with another grou . Amber and I merely said that it was understandable. $e didn&t say anything more, because we both would ha#e e4 loded with rage if we did. )egan is #ery touchy. This was actually the first time we&d seen her talk about something that was actually rele#ant to our li#es.

$e ne#er said anything to her. $e were so u set. $e had been u set with her when she had acted strangely, or disregarded us in fa#or of a certain boy she had been desiring... but this anger was so much worse than any before. $e e#entually buried it. $e s ent more time with her. The world seemed lo#ely. As time went on, time with her seemed less interesting. I grew im atient with our inability to discuss our friendshi with her. Time and again, she did not meet our e4 ectations. I can&t blame her, because we ne#er told her what our e4 ectations were. It often seemed that we didn&t mean as much to her as we should ha#e, gi#en the giant amount of time that we s ent with her. 0#entually, I started acting out, and saying things that I knew were uncomfortable to her. ,he seemed more distant than e#er. I talked to her, and I asked her once if there was any time she was e#er really mad at me. ,he lied, and said that she couldn&t think of one. +h. I forgot. Amber and I started to break u . I saw that our relationshi was becoming more stale, and that I was becoming more and more im atient than e#er. $e started to bicker occasionally, because I was being such a -erk. I was ha#ing trouble because I didn&t feel comfortable addressing the issue on my mind, and I had been moody and disres ectful because of it. $e e#entually agreed that our relationshi had a finite amount of time left. $e agreed to continue it for a while longer. This caused my frustration to #anish. I reali3ed that I wouldn&t be able to go any farther with Amber without feeling a whole lot of doubt... I&d always wonder what I would be like single, ha#ing only been single for a week out of the re#ious fi#e years. 0#entually, I asked )egan to be there for Amber if she needed it, in case Amber needed to talk about the breaku . After I asked )egan about being u set, I wrote her a letter. I was frustrated enough to write it, and for once, I was frustrated enough to send it. I told her that I was ha#ing trouble with her a#ersion to conflict, and that I really needed to talk with her about some serious things. ,he told me that she had actually been #ery u set lately. ,he said that she was confused by the relationshi between Amber and I. Though we broke u with each other, we continued to act like a cou le. ,he also had some other reasons she was angry. I grew u set, and wrote her an angry letter, e4 laining how frustrated I was, and how bad she was at dealing with the men around her. I also wrote an e#en more embarrassing letter, talking about how much she meant to me, and how I really would like to become #ery close, intimate, trusting friends with her. ,he didn&t re ly. ,he didn&t re ly for a week. It was a ainful week. I&#e ne#er been so de ressed for such a long eriod of time. I was hardly able to get anything done. I had lost a friend. A dear friend. I cared about her so much... that&s the only reason I was u set. 8es ite as much as I hated her... as much as I wanted to be able to hurt her... )y lo#e for her was so much greater. I s ent the week thinking about how u set I was with her, but I ne#er forgot how ha y I would be if she showed u at my door, for any reason. Amber e#entually went to hang out with her. )y -ealousy stung. Amber said that she didn&t want to get in the way of my conflict with )egan. I was mad that Amber didn&t want to hel out. I told Amber that she was being selfish, and that I wished that )egan would come to ignore Amber the same way, so that Amber could see what it felt like.

I sent )egan a message one day, telling her that I wanted to get together and talk about things for -ust a while. ,he told me that she had -ust about finished writing a message to me. I was ner#ously e4cited. I was gladdened that she was writing the message. The message was rather amicable, and e4 lained a few of the ways she felt. ,he had only addressed the first half of my message""the angry half. ,he wrote that she didn&t want me to feel &antsy&, so she sent the first half before writing the whole thing. I laughed at the gigantic understatement &antsy&. I asked later if I could sto by )egan&s room as she hung out with Amber. )egan agreed. $hen I got to )egan&s room, I saw the most beautiful thing I&#e e#er seen. )egan looked... relie#ed. (er smile... It&s haunted me for months and months... I was so ha y to see it. $hen we were alone, I told )egan that I belie#ed that she thought I was -ust a cra3y erson, and she didn&t want to see me again. ,he laughed, and said that she wasn&t that u set. I wanted to say so many things to her... Time went on. I s ent time with )egan, but I became #ery busy. ,he did as well. 0#entually, we didn&t talk #ery much. ,he seemed tired or annoyed when she saw me. It was nothing like the old days. I was worried again. Amber continued to hang out with her, but I didn&t s end much time with her. ,he offended me. ,he had talked about her birthday for months with Amber, but when her birthday ha ened, she s ent it with other friends, not e#en in#iting Amber. I was so u set. Amber was as well. I still can&t get o#er that... I belie#e that it was our right to celebrate with her on her birthday, after all the time that we&#e s ent with her. $e felt com letely wronged. ,chool ended. There was not much closure with )egan. 0#entually, she became so standoffish that it was hard to talk to her. The last time I saw her, she icked u something she forgot in my room, and left without saying much. ,he seemed so different from the )egan I once knew... the )egan with the beautiful, daring haircut. ,he was no longer the ama3ing, flirty, rebellious girl I knew... ,he was now a boring, shy, com licated erson, whose mention only ser#ed as a way to sting my knotted u feelings. ,ummer started. /or the first time, I was single. Actually, I&d been single for a month or so before summer started. I&d briefly considered other ladies, but something was always -ust not !uite right. +ne was totally aranoid of the way I was chatting with her. =I swear that I didn&t say anything worth a#oiding me o#er...< +ne was strung out by stress, and couldn&t deal with s ending time with me. +ne was close to me, but didn&t seem interested in me, and had something about her that ut me off... I still don&t know what it was, but I knew I wouldn&t be ha y with her, e#en for a while. ,ummer started, and I began work on my assion. I started to create the #ideo game I&d always wanted to make. I was retty ha y with myself. I also found my first full"time em loyment. I was often concerned about my friendshi with )egan. I wanted to understand what was going on with her. $e ended u chatting once or twice in )ay. I talked to a friend about )egan, and she told me about factors that were robably influencing me, and twisting my feelings about )egan, and that I should try to get o#er them. I agreed, and felt ha y. .ater, I was writing )egan a letter e4 laining all of the things that had ha ened that she didn&t know about. I wanted to get it all off of my chest, regardless of the effect it would ha#e on our friendshi . )y relations with her were draining my ha iness, and I figured that I had better fi4 the

roblem. Then I got hit with an idea. I thought about how ha y I became closer to her. I thought about all of the things that I en-oyed about her. Talking to her made me a reciate her more all the time, and writing about her had the same effect. I started to remember how beautiful she was... (ow attracti#e she was during all these different times... I remembered how smart she was... to of her class in music theory =the class I had with her<, and she scored a G1 on her A2T, the first time, without studying. *ot that her grades were much higher than a#erage in high school. I looked at all of the things we were assionate about... )usic, writing, #ideo games, and Anime... $e had #ery similar tastes in each, e#en though we ha#e lenty of differences. ,he makes the boring times interesting, the interesting times wonderful, and the wonderful times into memories that I won&t forget about for a long time. I e#entually confronted her =online<, asking her about the way she had been acting. I told her that I felt really worried that I had u set her somehow, and that I found it strange that she seemed so ha y when I #isited her one day, but then so off" ut a week later. ,he e4 lained to me that she didn&t ha#e any issue with me, and that she had -ust been really drained of energy o#er the last cou le weeks of school. At the last time I&d seen her, she had -ust finished one of her most difficult finals, and she had -ust been glad it was o#er. I had a delightful con#ersation with her that e#ening, ending it with a reference that essentially meant &I lo#e you&. ,he res onded #ery ositi#ely, and said goodbye. $e had many more great con#ersations o#er the summer, though they were mostly about things that weren&t #ery im ortant. ,he&s #ery slow to confess ieces of her mind to others. At one oint, we had a disagreement about something. I asked about !uestions that could be misinter reted, and she said that I better not try asking anything like that if I was considering it. I told her that talking through such misunderstandings is the key to building trust, and was the base of my success with Amber. ,he e#entually became offline. I don&t know whether she became uncomfortable with our debate or her internet failed. =her internet had been failing earlier that day< Regardless, I was disa ointed. I s ent the ne4t day being u set at her, thinking about all of the things that I was mad at her about. I got #ery angry... All throughout my work, I was thinking about all of the negati#e things about her. $hen I returned home, I was gladdened to see that she sent me a message. I had assumed she&d -ust ignore the con#ersation we had, but her message was nicely on to ic, and made a good oint. I res onded with more about what I thought. The ne4t day, she sent a message that really e4 lained her thoughts com letely. I wrote her a message that said that I&#e been too worried about the things I say around her, since I care about her so much. I made it rather sweet, and tried to make sure that it wouldn&t freak her out too bad =she&s #ery sensiti#e about attention from other boys<. The ne4t day, we met online, and had a great con#ersation together. I always end a con#ersation with her with a grin on my face. ,he&s #ery entertaining. +ne day, I felt ready to ask )egan to be my girlfriend. I lanned what I was going to say, and asked her to ha#e a #ideo chat with me. ,he res onded by saying that she was not clothed enough to ha#e a #ideo con#ersation, and that she didn&t want to wake the slee ing eo le in her house anyway. $e began ha#ing another te4tual con#ersation instead. $e ended u talking about strange guys, and she started telling me about how awkward it always was whene#er a friend of hers asked her out. I&m thankful that I ha#e a ositi#e attitude usually, so that I was able to laugh about it and not become frustrated.

Amber is still my best friend. I s eak with her -ust about e#ery single day. ,ince we&#e broken u , we had one ma-or argument. $e agreed to disagree e#entually, but recently she came to me, telling me that &I told her so&. I acce ted her understanding without trying to make her feel guilty. Amber is an im ortant art of my life. Thankfully, she told me that she doesn&t want me back. This confession has caused us to be able to trust each other com letely once again, without worrying about things that are said. Amber has grown in distance with )egan, due to geogra hical distance, but she ho es that )egan and I can ha#e a successful relationshi with each other. I found out that I&m allergic to oranges and an uncertain artificial fla#oring or color found in candy. After isolating these two allergens =which are each significantly less owerful than chocolate<, I&#e eliminated them from my diet along with my ec3ema. )y time being tortured by ec3ema was awful, but now I don&t ha#e to regret it. It has taught me much about suffering. I am no longer afraid of hysical ain, so long as I know when it will end. *aturally, I a#oid ain, but if I must ha#e it, I can deal with it. I am now #ery sensiti#e about my skin, but I&m getting o#er it, allowing myself to get s lashed or sweaty, and not s ending insane amounts of time making frustrated &ad-ustments& to it with my nails. I find the com le4ity of a erson so interesting. Perha s you&re a master sychologist, and you can understand the way my thoughts o erate. +therwise, you really don&t know me. I find it disa ointing that I can tell you a story as long as the one I&#e told, and you still don&t really know me. ?ou ha#e an idea of what I might be like, but it would take months longer for you to really know me. 0#en )egan doesn&t know me that well... (ell, e#en I sur rise myself all the time. Amber once robably knew me better than I knew myself. ,till, I&m glad to be able to share this story with you. It&s interesting to wonder what kind of ers ecti#e you&ll ha#e as you read this story. This is a #ery )egan"centric story... It ski s out on lenty of significant e#ents and eo le in my life, focusing on lo#e and relationshi s. I wish that there was a more efficient means of communicating information about myself than words... I ho e that what I&#e written accom lishes the goal you had in mind as you asked this !uestion. +ne last thing. +#er time, I&#e become less obsessed o#er )egan. I no longer think of her e4actly one time er day =starting at the moment I wake u <. I was always willing to acce t being at an arm&s length from her fore#er, if she was uninterested in being with me =I&d already done that for many months, des ite an attraction to her. I could do it fore#er if I had to.< I now would be able to handle being turned down by her. I can&t think of any other girl as being worth being with until I take my chance with )egan... unfortunately, she&s been so busy lately that I ha#en&t had any chance to talk to her. I want you to know how much I&d be willing to do for her if I could be able to see that smile on her face e#ery day. I want you to know how ha y I&d be if she said that she was grateful for me. I feel awful that I ha#en&t told her anything like that yet... but I belie#e I will ha#e the ro er chance soon. ,ure, I&m -ust another one of those infatuated fools on the sidelines right now... but I can&t hel but be u set with any guy who seeks her =or anyone I lo#e< without caring as much about her as I do. Perha s I&ll grow out of my fi4ation o#er her soon, but the oint is that right now, there&s so much I want to offer her, -ust to make her ha y. That&s the oint of the #ery last art of my story... it&s one of the most im ortant things to me, so you can consider it the ne4t cha ter in this little life story. It might ro#e to be ama3ingly great for me, and it might ro#e to ruin me, or =more likely,< it will be like any other e#ent in life, lea#ing me with a bit more knowledge, a few more things to wonder about, and an outcome that changes my course -ust so much that I won&t know who I would be if it didn&t ha en. $hat&s your story% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i dont know who i am com letely, and it bothers me, but it doesnt. im constantly going in circles about my confidence, and my looks. i -ust want to be ok with )0,whoe#er that is. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 6itches.

The end. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I like cats. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born mid"8ecember, the oldest of three, two girls and a boy. )y family is large and young and close@ most of my childhood in#ol#ed laying with my siblings and cousins, building forts in cris $isconsin woods, baking 2hristmas cookies all day, creating games, etc. I was a shy girl, and remain a bit so today, but ha#e strong o inions and am a bit stubborn in my idealism. )y arents are wonderful" my mom is oetic and kind, and my dad is hardworking and caring. I ne#er had anything to worry about growing u , besides trying not to disa oint them, not that they ut any ressure on us. ,chool was as I imagine it to be for most eo le. I -ust got out, and took a train to Ari3ona" my first 5ad#enture5. (a#e since mo#ed back, went to college u north, dro ed out and came home, and found a -ob working at a news a er. Trying to sa#e u some money for my other goals and ro-ects" hiking the A alachian Trail, learning how to homestead, writing a no#el... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y name is *atalie. I was born in )aryland nineteen years ago. )y arents are still together, and I ha#e one older brother. (e molested me for four years when we were young, and I feel like that defines me in some ways. I ha#e intimacy issues because of it, and I ha#e social an4iety disorder that resulted from the trauma, but I am not what he did to me. I like to grow my own food and gi#e myself stick &n& oke tattoos. I ha#e a girlfriend named Anna who is so, so lo#ely. I #olunteer at the wildlife de artment of the local nature centre and hel care for in-ured animals. I&m #ery glad you asked me about this. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" /). """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i am on my hone so i cannot atm. )essage me back because i like these !uestions. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y ast is now my ast and that&s where it belongs ;< I ha#e decided that it&s better to li#e in the moment and think about the future instead of looking back on the ast and thinking things like why, or what if... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $rite back lease% I grew u in G different laces, I only ha#e one memory from the first lace, I was standing in the dirt dri#e way with my arents. $e mo#ed when I was two. At the second house =li#ed in till I was 5< I lo#ed my room, it had a giant chest with all my toys and retty window. )y cousin se4ually abused me in that house. I didn&t reali3e what it was till I was older. )y current house is where most my memories lie. I met my best friend =first grade threw 10th grade< here, she is my neighbor. $e e4 lored our land and had so many memories, =the microwa#e, i en, etc.< $e don&t talk anymore. I had my first serious relationshi in 10th grade. (e broke my heart in to a million ieces. )any guys followed. I met my current best friends entering into our senior year of high school. I lo#e them to death. $ere stoners, we smoke e#eryday. I always said I ne#er would, but I say I&d ne#er gi#e it u ... because I wouldn&t. I&m entering my so hmore year of college. .ife is scary to me. I want to fall in lo#e again. I ha#e s ent the last year single and healing. I went right from my first lo#e to two more serious relationshi s, one after the other. I ne#er had time to myself to heal, the last guy hurt me bad. 6ut I think I&m ready. .ife&s a mystery ya know% I&m scared, but it&s mi4ed with e4citement. $e all might be dead in a

cou le months anyway. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" This is the com letely and unaltered truth. )y life began on ,e tember 70th, 1IIE in )ontreal, 2anada. I was born early to a lo#ing mother, a caring father, and an older sister. After a year of throwing u anything that I ingested, my mother mo#ed back in with her arents, bringing all of us with her. : years later and I finally left the nest, going to reschool. There, I met my best friend who, unbeknownst to me, would continue to be my best friend for more than a decade. +nce in rimary school, life changed. There were more eo le to meet, more things to do, more res onsibilities to ha#e. It certainly wasn&t easy because at age ', I was diagnosed with &Petit )al& or more commonly known as 0 ile sy. I don&t know if I had sei3ures while I was at school and I&m not sure if I had any while I was at home because they are as they are named. They are absence sei3ure and for the time that I had a sei3ure, there is -ust what I describe as a &Time ,ki &. There&s -ust a ga in time. I was gi#en medicine for it and I took it as religiously as a ' year old could@ that is to say when I remembered. At 11 years old, I graduated from elementary and went on to high school. )ost of my friends went to a different one than I did and so it was as if I was starting in a new school. (owe#er, I made new friends and I ke t old friends. That was also the year where e#eryone -oined /acebook so it wasn&t e4actly a hard task. )y fi#e years of high school in#ol#ed many friendshi s made and friendshi s broken, teachers trusted, and garbage cans kicked down the stairs. All in all, I only failed one class in all of my 11 years of schooling. I graduated in 7011 at 1: years old with two bursaries for my accom lishments during high school. $ithout fail, I mo#ed on to college in the .iterature rogram to incor orate my burning assion for reading and writing. And that leads u to today. I&m going into my second year in the rogram. I&m com letely cured of e ile sy. All my high school friends and all my rimary school friends, the ones that really mattered, are at my side or -ust a short arms reach away. I could ossibly be in line for the best -ob of my life and I am trying to finish a no#el I started writing two years ago. I feel like I should be in the best lace in my life but... there&s something missing. )aybe it is because I am not li#ing as the a#erage teenager should. )aybe it is the !uestion I ha#e about my se4uality. )aybe it is my career ath, erha s it is the wrong one. )aybe it&s the goals I&#e set for myself. Are they too ambitious% +r maybe it&s this world. )aybe it&s -ust so screwed u that my frail understanding of it cannot in words or thought com rehend it. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" It fucking sucks, but it ain&t no thang. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Per etual sadness. 8. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2an you get back to me% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born, I grew u , and someday soon I&ll die and be forgotten. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y story is sim le. It&s kee ing my head abo#e water, -ust like e#eryone else. ,ometimes I make it and sometimes I don&t. Peo le wait for me to fall, and I&m constantly in fear that I will. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I fell in lo#e with rock and roll in Dth grade. I&#e been a 2hristian for the ast E years. I saw one of my fa#orite bands in concert yesterday. I&m still afraid of drowning. ,ometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a wolf. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I grew u with a gorgeous mother. ,he was sweet at times, but she could seem retty damn horrible, cause she yelled at me all the time. )y 8ad was the sweetest, but when he started roofing I hardly e#er saw him. )y mother homeschooled me at my most crucial moments, so now I ha#e a fear of eo le. I hate to order at restaurants, to be in a crowd. I&m trying hard to get o#er it. I ha#e a roblem with authority because my mother ne#er taught me well enough how to res ect her. I res ect eo le if they&re understanding. she almost ne#er was. I&m afraid of water. I can&t swim, and I ne#er want to. I&m afraid of 3ombies and skeletons. I basically li#e in fear ;> If I like someone, or if we&re together, I&ll get #ery #ery -ealous and angry at the slightest thing. I ha#e

huge anger roblems. I started dating someone who I was ne#er com letely ha y with. (e would try to force information out of my, like if I was kee ing a secret. (e was a little abusi#e. (e ended u cheating on me. I&m still not com letely o#er that because it&s still fresh in my mind. I was ra ed. I was walking down an alley, wearing skinny -eans and a t"shirt. (e came out of no where and I still don&t know who he was or if he was locked u . )y mother and I constantly fought. I rebelled lenty of times, and stayed out ast two e#ery night. $hen I came home my mother would tell me to get home before one, I needed my slee . I -ust did it again the night after, e4e t this time I was making out with a guy. it was a retty hot dis lay...I was layed on the hood of my mom&s car and he was on to of me, kissing my neck and face. ,he kicked me out. I ha#e done other things that ushed her to kicking me out, but that time really did it. I now li#e with my best friend Tessa, in her mom&s house. I go to a ba tist church on ,undays and $ednesday nights. I sto ed cutting my hair but I still wear skinny -eans. I&m still de ressed. I&m in a relationshi now. The guy&s really gorgeous. I think so anyway, he won&t belie#e me when I call him handsome or cute ;G (e gi#es me ho e. faith. I&m li#ing a considerably better life, but I do still ha#e bad infuences and such. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y name is 2laire Isabel Rose Cuo3itis. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I come from a land, from a faraway lace, where the cara#an camels =used to< roam. It&s all flat and immense and the heat is intense, it&s a furnace, but hey, it&s homeH *o, I&m not from the )iddle 0Ast, but close to there. I&m from 2entral Asia. whoohoo ;<and now I li#e in 2anadaH """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&#e fucked u . Again. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" well, my name is katie, i want to be a cat or a ballerina when i grow u . i ha#e this ama3ing boyfriend that has hel ed me through absolutely e#erything, and i&m fi4ing to be 1: in 7 daysH whoo whoooo H """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I wake u in the morning feeling like "diddy, got my glasses out the door gonna hit the city... """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 5+f all the ad#entures in the world,5 she said, 5mine is the grandest.5 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m the kind of erson that let&s things get in my way because I am la3y. 8octors tell me that I&m not actually la3y, but de ressed. I do not en-oy most as ects of li#ing. I find most TB shows and mo#ies irrele#ant and therefore not worth my time. $hen I graduated high school, I was considered ca able of entering any field of study. I e#entually reali3ed, that although I could do anything, I do not desire to do so. Perha s I do not e4 erience e4istence as e#eryone else. At this oint, I refuse to be 5cured5 and do not get my blood tested in ho es that the le#els of lithium in my system will ro#e fatal. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m (ailey, and I&m 15 years old. I&m originally from 2alifornia, but my arents mo#ed me here when I was a year old. Right now, I&m feeling a little blue. I&#e basically -ust reali3ed I ha#e more online friends than real ones. And also that I only associate with maybe E other eo le in my whole school. I think I&#e forgotten how to make friends. I mean, sure I can do it here. 6ut, if you find me +9T T(0R0, it&s im ossible. Talk to me%% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am 1I year old girl who li#es in the *etherlands. In a month is start my Gd year of a Eyear long Aerman teacher study. )y arents are from Turkey and mo#ed to the *etherlands after they got married. They are muslim, raised me muslim.. but I am not religious. they dont know this.. and its a big no"no if you say you dont belie#e in Allah, when e#eryone in your family and my arents& friends are muslim.

To make it e#en greater. I am currently in a long distance relationshi with my boyfriend of 1 year. $e met o#er the internet. $e lo#e eachother dee ly and we ha#e lans for the future. $e ha#e yet to meet. In a year im gonna li#e in germany for G months, thats art of my study. )y boyfriend is going to #isit me there. (e is soon getting a well ayed -ob Kcurrently working at )c8onalds while ha#ing a 6achelor degree in ,cienceL. $ith the money he earns he&s gonna #isit me, ay of his college loans and get his own a artment. $hen he has his own a artment, im mo#ing in with him for 1 year where#er in america his -ob will be. I want to find a translating -ob there while i li#e there. after this one year I go back to holland. I do another study of teacher 0nglish Kshould only take 1 yearL. Then we ha#e to face my arents, e4 lain Im in a serious relationshi with an American.. I dont know how they will react.. but we wanna marry and li#e ha ily e#er after in (olland..

I -ust e4 lained you my entire life.. u better re ly H 48 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2an I message it to you% I&#e been wanting to do this, but there&s no way I can do it from my hone. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was e4 elled from the warmth and comfort of my mother&s womb and entered the harsh, alien real world, a million times larger than the co3y home I had re#iously known. ,e#enteen years later I was e4 elled from my nook of warmth and comfort yet again, and brought into yet another alien world so much bigger than my re#ious one. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I hated running because my dad ut ressure on me, and now my leadershi osition with it is the only source of inde endence I ha#e. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" This is my story. It&s called 5The ,cience Pro-ect.5 .ong, long ago, there was a boy, who was assigned a science ro-ect. (e had a whole month to com lete it, but rocrastinated and ended u doing the whole thing in the last week before it was due. /or his science ro-ect, he made a s here, ut some water in it, and then filled it with tiny little creatures that followed his e#ery command. (e got about a 2 on the ro-ect. (e was still roud of it though, and for a while, lo#ed laying with his science ro-ect and interacting with all the little creatures on it. And the creatures lo#ed him back. .ike any Grd grader, howe#er, the boy e#entually became bored with it and set it away on a shelf somewhere. The ro-ect lay there forgotten for many many years, but all the little creatures still belie#ed that one day he would ick u the science ro-ect again. In fact, some li#ed their whole li#es around this belief. 6ut the boy ne#er did. This boy had a name. (e was called Aod. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m a teenager, my childhood memories are filled with ha iness. The only time I can really remember being e4tremely u set when I was younger was when I lost my closest relati#e, my grand a. (e was so sweet. Through the years my arents ha#e had their roblems, but they always make it through. )y mon has recently lost a lot of weight and is so ha y, I couldn&t be more roud of her. )y sister was suicidal for about a year and she told me that I&m the only reason she&s still ali#e, that it wouldn&t ha#e been fair to me. That was the hardest thing to hear. I don&t know what I would ha#e done without her, and I&m incredibly blessed to ha#e somehow sa#ed her. I don&t know what I did or if I e#en did anything, but I&m thankful for whate#er ha ened that sa#ed her. I&m so glad she&s better now and is en-oying life and looking forward to uni#ersity. ?eah that&s basically all of my family life.. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I fell. I fought. I con!uered. I stumbled. $hat now% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *othing much I can say. 9ne#entful, boring, lonely. I&#e been smoking the ast ' months and its

been really enlightening. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born and I li#ed. $hen I was four, my arents sto ed li#ing and I mo#ed in with my aunt. I absolutely hated e#erything about li#ing with her so I asked to start taking dance class to get time away from her and her e#il, e#il dog. I grew u and I got used to her =but not the dog< and I ke t going with the dance classes. I won awards and had tons of auditions. I was e#en in a cou le commercials and a background dancer in an off broadway show =which bombed but was still a dream e4 erience<. I mo#ed out of my aunt&s house the first chance I got and ended u going back =twice< but I enrolled in a real college for the fall so I&ll ha#e a backu lan when I can&t get a dancing -ob. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I wish to see the truth. Then, I can be at eace. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am a musician who has a -ob as a art time cook. I lo#e my guitar and bass and also my -ob and am going to hate to lea#e it when I go to college. I lo#e to eat asta of any sort but cannot stand to eat #egetables e#en though I deal with them e#eryday. .ast 8ecember I fell in lo#e with a beautiful girl who then left me for another guy after our third day of dating. I was heartbroken but my music ke t me ali#e and well for many nights. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Regret. Redem tion. Re eat. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $ell for the ast month or so, I&#e been in !uite a slum . All de ressed and lonely, you know. I always try to look at things ob-ecti#ely, so my best guess is it&s a wa#e of hormones, seeing as I&m still going through adolescence. 6ut the last few days ha#e actually been !uite nice. I met this girl, you see. As soon as I found out that she&s into me, all my loneliness went away. ,o that&s my story. +r rather, the most recent iece of my story. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ill ty e it u . -ust message me back """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I didn&t date until I was 7GHH """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" all I want is to make eo le laugh ;8 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y name is 8.8. 8rosselmeier. $hen I was young, I found that I had the ability to write stories to life. 9nfortunately for many, I ha ened to ha#e a wonderful fascination for Tragedies.

I would write stories into reality for eo le in e4change for goods. 0#entually, they began to fear me because of my tremendous ower. A grou of eo le hunted me down. They called themsel#es 5the bookmen5 and they cut off my hands in an attem t to sto my writing. (owe#er, before I died, I wrote the beginning of a story in my own blood, continuing my life.

It is u to you if you want to hear more. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $hy so serious% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" my dad and his family were ne#er around and my grand a&s family li#e really far away. i&#e li#ed in my two cousin&s shadows my whole life. my mom&s ste "mom died, causing the rest of my family to lea#e and ne#er talk to me again. i wanted to kill myself a few years later, i didn&t. i&m better now e#en with my an4iety. and now i wake u most mornings with a smile on my face. the end. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

I was concei#ed to two twenty one year olds. They got married and I was born in Culy of 1III. /i#e years later they di#orced. )y mom and sister and I mo#ed a lot, so I ga#e u on making friends. In third grade, my mother married Allen. I started making friends again. $e stayed in that town till now. I ha#e se#ere social an4iety. I&#e attem ted suicide twice and ha#e A88. I&m thirteen years old, an otaku, somewhat de ressed, a nerd, olyamorous, bise4ual =leaning towards girls<, and a shut"in. I lo#e role laying as well. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ill write a book about it when im close to being done li#ing my life, so you get the $(+.0 story. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" hmmm well if you really want to know. I&m an army brat since birth. I mo#e e#ery three years so I always ha#e to make new friends. 6ut at least it&s made me a little more out going and less shy. That&s stuff is boring though. I can talk about my romantic life which isn&t much since I&m hardly romantic. I&m a girl btw. )y first boyfriend was in Dth grade. (e was the worst boyfriend e#er which most all first boyfriends are. (e was so bad that instead of calling him 1e#in =his name< me and my family called him 1el#in which means absolute 3ero. (e was a skinny and had a huge -ewish afro. It&s e#en larger now. (e sucked as a boyfriend because we ne#er talked, ne#er held hands, or felt the urge to try to kiss each other. +ur &dates& consisted of sitting together at lunch. That was it. *o con#ersation or nothing. And after he told my sister we broke u =ne#er told me we were<I found out he was cheating on me and started dating one of my so called friends. ?eah he was a douche bag. 6ut a few years later I found out he got e4 elled for drug use. ?u , I knew he was a ot headH $ell, I don&t feel like chatting your ear off but if you are still interested in my life -ust message me and I&ll tell you more. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" A wish for me I want the best friend I e#er had, Irene, to forgi#e me. ,ome say I am stu id and should forget about her but they -ust don&t get it. I don&t want to end it. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&ll tell you a bit about my childhood. I don&t remember much of it, honestly. It was -ust a big ile of shit and I -ust remember the -ems. It&s not like it was horrific and I wouldn&t wish it on my worst enemy, it was fine. It was -ust really embarrassing all the time. $hen I was in kindergarten I had a roblem with wetting my ants -ust about e#ery fucking day, no thanks to my teacher. I guess it was school olicy to go in the bathroom with your students. ?ou&d think after nearly half a year of constant day wetting e#ery day, she&d reali3e it may be a good idea to let me go by my self. ,o that ha ened for a while. $hen I got in to grade school it was -ust dribbles that would occasionally show through my ants in a small s ot, but enough about my bathroom habit. I ne#er had too many friends, growing u , I had maybe 7 close friends, and G 5friends5 that liked me for stuff I had, and because I was gullible. I shared one bedroom with my immediate family until second grade, which wasn&t too bad. 6unk beds definitely hel ed. I didn&t learn to read until e4tremely late. In fact, -ust in recent years I&#e started getting my shit together, which is good. Also, I mo#e a lot. ,omehow I&#e managed to screw u almost all my new starts in a new school district. ,chool is starting in a week or so, so we&ll see how I fuck u my re utation these ne4t E years. It&ll be an ad#enture. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born in a small town in maryland and I&#e li#ed here all my life. )y dad is a tattoo artist. I don&t care about eo le enough. I always feel secluded and alone. I&#e wanted to die since I was '. I lo#e too dee ly. I don&t lo#e dee ly enough. I don&t try hard enough. I&m constantly being re-ected, no matter how hard I try to be good enough.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Right now I li#e with my boyfriend in his moms basement. (e lost his -ob a few months ago and we had no choice. I really want to mo#e out though because his mom is so confrontational and unfair to me and my boyfriend. $e ay rent and buy our own food but she still gets on our case all the time. )y boyfriend wants to take ad#antage of it and ay off some stuff like our cars and credit card bills but I don&t know how much more I can handle. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 0at. ,lee . 6reathe. )usic. Re eat. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&ll describe my life in the song lyrics by Trent Re3nor. The song is 5I do not want this5 I wanna know e#erything I wanna be e#erywhere I wanna fuck e#eryone in the world I wanna do something that matters """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born in Alendale, 2alifornia on Culy 11th, 1II' at ';G7 m in Alendale Ad#entist (os ital to a /ili ina and American cou le. I was raised by my American grandmother until my arents got a di#orce and my mother decided to mo#e her and I to *orth 2arolina when I was fi#e. I was ha y for a while@ I had friends I lo#ed and my mother had a boyfriend that was #ery dear to me. $hen I was twel#e, my grandmother and father died within si4 months of eachother. It wasn&t until now that I reali3ed how my father ruined e#erything. (e s ent my grandmother&s money, a ro4imately E00,000 dollars that she gained from suing the )etro com any=think buses and subways< to li#e on, within four months. And you know what he urchased% Aoddamn #odka, cigarettes, and likely, cocaine. (e told me that it was all a farce and I belie#ed him. I was about eight or nine. )y grandmother died in a hos ital of neumonia and he of drug"induced sei3ures. I&m scarred and hurt by him. (e set the worst ossible e4am le for me, his only child and ruined my connection to my American heritage. 6ut I don&t hate him, no. This life that I&m leading now is all thanks to that one lil s erm, which I am greatful for. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (eh, I don&t e#en know what my story is sometimes. I can tell you a little about myself, though. I know I lo#e my friends and art more than anything else. I don&t care much about religion, I think olitics are boring, the news is brainwash, and fame is o#errated. I don&t belie#e in regrets. I try to a reciate the little things in life and not care what eo le think. I listen to a bunch of different ty es of music, lo#e #ideo games, ne#er wear lain white socks, and I en-oy sitting on my roof at night. (ow about you% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&#e ne#er done anything that e4citing and I tend to lay by the rules. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i am 1', from *ew ?ork, i am ado ted and ha#e two little twin sisters. I am to of my class, and ho e to go to 6rown so that one day i can eliminate o#erty. I ha#e E cats, and my Aramma li#es ne4t door. I take iano, and lo#e to read and ski and do art. $hat about you% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Arowing u , my house was retty #iolent. )y arents didn&t hit me much but they knew my brother was hurting me retty badly and they figured I&d figure out how to deal with it e#entually. I had a good life, though. A lot of eo le I knew ha#e died young, but at least I got to lo#e them first. I li#ed in 2alifornia long enough that I know how it feels to stand on a ier at midnight and twirl in the wind. I li#ed in 9tah long enough to know how it feels to run outside in a snowstorm wearing only a-amas, -ust to feel the first real snow of winter. I&#e been #ery sick for a long time. I fell in lo#e with a guy who couldn&t kee himself out of -ail, and I walked away, and it hurt. I still

lo#e him. $hat&s your story% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2om licated """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ?a fhtagn 2thulhuH """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" It has taken me all these decades to arri#e at where I want to be """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y life is retty horrible. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" . """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born somewhere. I ha#e li#ed for 1G years. 1"E or 5; *on",entient E"5" '; )isusing ,entience '"10; .i#ing in eace. 10"17; .i#ing in India 1G; Philoso hy. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m tra ed. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" im an underco#er su er#ilan disguising myself as yoda """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2an i tell you when i wake u cu3 id like to tell you but im too tired to ty e n i dont want this !uestion to go inacti#e """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I store -ealousy in the core of my heart. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i ha#e two dogs, and a cat. i don&t like the cat #ery much. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am confused stressed out, o#er whelmed and I am -ust starting to figure out my ur ose again. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" A lot of shit ha ened, but I&m mo#ing on. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 0#erything that follows is stream of consciousness, no edits or auses to think or reread. =Ti ; 8on&t let me fool you into thinking I take myself as seriously as I a oint.< ear to. I stress this

I don&t like how you said 1 5sentence5 or 5000 5words.5 Those are two different units of length. *othing says that one sentence must contain less than 5000 words or less, so your com arison was silly. I ho e you doesn&t think I don&t like you now. I really like your first sentence, s ecifically the hrase 5your story,5 as I find that to be a #ery humanistic hrase. ?es, e#eryone is uni!ue, that is something eo le might forget a lot these days, so thank you for reminding us. +kay here&s my life and to some e4tent, my story. I&m only going to do resent because ast will take u much too much time. Also note that it may be formatted strangely, and I may sound, um, & retentious& might be the right word, but that&s for you to -udge. I -ust graduated high school with an honors di loma. At graduation I recei#ed an award inconse!uential and unbeknownst to me until that oint in time. I am still roud of it because it affirms my singular #anity. I think I&m #ery smart. I&m not telling you I am, I merely think I am, and

am !uick to admit that my ride does not turn my thoughts into facts in my mind. I don&t take ride in my communicati#e intelligence, no, that is not what you see here. $hat you see here, this style of writing, is me trying and failing to emulate articulation. It&s something I need to ractice at, so for the time, you and I will ha#e to deal with it =if you are com laining in your head, remember that this is the best of my ability, something which I ha#e to li#e with infinitely more often than you do<. The award was for calculus. I am going to college in the fall and am undeclared in my ma-or but am taking an unofficial re" engineering regimen. Cust ad#anced math and hysics as all, as well as $riting 1 and Intro to 0thics. I know I&m going into a math or science field, so re"engineering is a ro riate. I am not good at communication. )y lack of sociali3ation may be the sole com onent to blame for this, and it is the only one I ha#e right now, for I ha#e not been diagnosed with any ersonality or de#elo mental disorders. I don&t ha#e any friends. I get along with eo le at work, and some of them used to be my friends, but now are mere eo le with whom I am friendly% I sto seeing friends outside of a school or work setting because I de#elo ed a rather se#ere self" consciousness of my social an4iety and shyness and lace among what I had assumed to be my circle of friends. In a few short weeks I reali3ed how eo le see me. It was not a bad thing, not really, it was -ust a shock. (ow did I not see that earlier% I don&t know how to articulate the receding few oints, as that eriod of transitional time went by !uickly. Trying to icture what day is like in the night is im ossible because there are is no light. Regardless, I fell into de ression o#er drastic change in lifestyle and new =what I like to call< su er"consciousness, a conce t which may or may not be alluded to later on when I discuss my new found lo#e of hiloso hy"based te4ts and fictional stories based thereu on. Anyways, where the heck was I% Right, de ression. I s ent all day on the com uter, or slee ing, etc. $hen I s eak of my de ressions, I s eak of rofound indifference. I do not ha#e emotions, wants, cares, needs, hates, or a future when I am de ressed. That began a ro4imately recisely one year ago. It lasted until the end of winter, erha s due to seasonal affecti#e disorder =makes you sad when the sun is ne#er out, an e#olutionary thing I belie#e<. Then I got a -ob and am ha y to work there as it allows me to a#oid my mother, who is truly beyond descri tion. I will tell you that she is a ne4us of mani ulation, selfishness, and aranoia. Anecdotes are too many and I will a#oid them, for only through e4 erience can you accurately learn about her. The oint is, I like working because it allows me to be out of the house. $hen I am not working, I like to read. I am #ery much into e4istentialism and absurdism. I won&t bore you though, as these to ics are !uite esoteric to most for the moment. I also like the dabble in iano, although I am terrible and can only lay sim lified #ersions of songs. I also s end time on the internet. That&s all. That&s the most I ha#e e#er written about anything in my life. Pre#ious to this it was a '00 words re ort on (amlet for 0nglish. Putting it all in a word counter, this comes out to DI7 words. Cust a tad under 5000.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this, I ho e you made it all the way through. If you ha#e anything to say to me, ,A? IT, I im lore you. Thank you. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )aybe later """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I am a sim le man. I&m -ust trying to li#e a life worth li#ing. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" yes """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $ell I don&t know where to startH I&m -ust going to tell you im ortant arts of my life. )y dad got diagnosed with bladder cancer because he smoked for a long time, and it really makes me angry when eo le smoke. )y dad doesn&t ha#e cancer anymore, but I&m sensiti#e to smoking> eo le smoking. I ha#e a sister who is like my bestfriend. I ha#e a bo4er dog and a cat. I lo#e to run, and I lost EE ounds. I&m #ery roud. I also lay soccer and lacrosse. I ha#e a green eye and a blue eye. I also ha#e a birthmark in my eye. I ha#e a half brother who li#es in , ain. I&m currently in an internet relationshi , and ha#e been for two years. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born. I mo#ed around a lot. I lay music good. *ot so good with gramer. =I did that on ur ose< $ent to school, it wasn&t for me. *ow I work 55":0 hours a weeks. I -ust bought a sa4o hone. It&s blue. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" The name is ,arah. I was born three months early, and I wasn&t su osed to make it. I did. =yayH< )y arents di#orced when I was two. I inherited the worst ste mom e#er when I was four. I am battling an4iety and de ression e#ery day because of ele#en years of emotional abuse. It is okay though. It -ust makes me stronger. I belie#e in Aod, and I belie#e that the only way to hea#en is through Cesus. I ho e you en-oyed% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )y arents di#orced when I used to see my dad e#ery weekend but it slowly decreased. I saw him once three years ago and once this year and that was it. I am bi. *o, I&m not confused. I -ust like both. I am engaged. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m getting ready to be big. Really big, winning grammy&s. I&m -ust in re eration """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 6orn in the 6ahamas. .earned to read. )o#ed to /lorida. ,tarted 1indergarten. .iked cats. Arew u smart. Arew u la3y. Read books, decided the fa#orite was 2atch"77. 6ecame an atheist. Read books. $ent to college =Auburn< a so homore. (ated college. $ill continue anyway. $ill go to community college closer to home to get rid of Physics. Plan to go to 92/ after that. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Amo le cose sen3a un senso, !uesta musica !ua !uaH 9n senso non ce l&ha l&ha. )a ca33o

!uanto om aH 1+*A /9,I+* I, TR90 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" im really cool" also i hate myself anyway. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,orry this is !uite long but more interesting bits come later on, if you like you could read a bit then come back to it later. I&ll start by gi#ing you my basic background, before going onto what has been the most interesting e#ent of my life so far. I&m a 15 year old girl and I ha#e grown u in *orth $ales all my life. Things I&#e been interested in all my life are acting, reading, writing stories, drawing, and generally being creati#e. Another hobby I&#e taken u recently is laying iano. I&#e always liked be different, unusual, standing out from the crowd, I don&t like -ust co ying what&s o ular. I&m also a #ery religious erson. *ow I&ll tell you a bit about my early life. In rimary school I was best friends with a girl called 2aitlin. ,he was always a bit odd, but we were mates any way. ,he&s in the year below me and we went to different (igh ,chools, so we were only friends for like : years. $e ha#enMt s oken in a while but I&m sure if we meet u again we&d still get along well, es ecially now we ha#e something to talk about. .ook out, e#en though it&s been years since we s oke 2aitlin does make a sur rising a earance later on in my life story. *ow we get on to some slightly more interesting bits. I had my first crush in my first year of (igh school when I was 17. (is brown eyes were what made me fall for him, those wonderful dee brown eyes, I could stare into them all day. (e was a twin, but I was ne#er interested in his brother. Anyway sadly we ne#er seemed to get on that well so I&m o#er him now. I&#e still liked brown eyes in guys e#er since though. 0#ery year our school goes on a tri to a lace called *ant 6wlch ?r (aearn. It&s $elsh, we -ust call it *ant 6( for short. ?ou stay there for 7 nights. The first year I went I remember noticing a boy in the year abo#e me. I&m not sure why I noticed him, did I fancy him% *o. There was -ust something about him that caught my eye, I wasn&t sure what. )aybe it was his funny, outgoing ersonality% Though I ne#er s oke to him. +ddly one of the first things I noticed about this boy was his eyebrow. $eird I know, but he did ha#e a really weird left eyebrow, which he and all his mates -oked about. $hen we got back from my first year of this tri , I had to wait in the school rece tion for my 9ncle to come ick me u . I was waiting with G other girls, 1 from my year and 7 others from one of the years abo#e me. The girl from my year left and it was left -ust me and the 7 friends. A boy from the year abo#e me came in to ask the rece tionist about something. I didn&t know him, but e#en though he was in the year abo#e me he was !uite small and looked young. $hen he walked in the 7 older girl immediately began making comments. It was a small room yet they were saying nasty things about him when he was standing right there with in clear ear shot. N(e&s such a freak.O N(e&s got no friends.O N04ce t teachers, ahhaHO N?eah, oh, and that Cosh.O N?eah, no mated e4ce t the teachers and Cosh...O As this was going on the young boy was trying his best to ignore it, and carry on his con#ersation with the rece tionist. I felt terabley sorry for the oor kid, I wanted to say something and defend him, but I was too shy to. I didn&t e#en know him or the 7 girls, looking back erha s I should ha#e. After he was done he walked out the office !uietly, trying to ignore the girls harsh remarks. I went to *ant 6( again the ne4t year. I noticed weird"eybrow"boy there again. (e was still -okey and out going like I remembered, but I still didn&t s eak with him. The ne4t year I went back on this tri again in the ne4t year when I was in year D and when I was in year I . $hene#er we got there we first went to the 2anteen for .unch after the long coach -ourney, and each year we were assigned a table to sit at for our whole stay. In year I guess who was sat on my table, weird"eye"brow boy. This year I actually s oke to him for the first time, his

name is Cosh. $e actually got on well. The bad thing is when he was sat with me I noticed someone sitting near me on our table had a bit of .6.+. $as it him% I wasn&t sure, but he seemed really nice anyway so I decided to tolerate it. +n this tri e#eryone is s lit into grou s and goes on acti#ities together. /or some bi3arre reason this year our grou leaders thought the funnest thing to do on the first day, would be to go on a walk u a hill. "P" It was so boring, and tiring. seriously if we wanted to go on a ointless walk we could ha#e stayed at home and walked to school. $hile we were on the walk I noticed one boy in our grou . (e was short but oddly energetic, the grou leaders were occasionally ha#ing to warn him against climbing u rocks or slate hills. (e had flo y brown hair and a bit of a bowl cut, he didn&t seem to feel the need to stick with any of the other boys in our grou , he was ha y to go running and -um ing about by himself. (e was in one of the higher years but he looked younger. I looked at him and thought to myself, &I can tell he&s a bit cra3y.& After that last tri I became friends a bit with Cosh .A.1.A. 0yebrow"boy. I decided I wanted to get to know him more and become better friends with him because he seemed nice. I forgot about cra3y"little"dude though. In year I =+r it may ha#e been late on in year D, I can&t really remember.< I got a crush on a boy in our school. (is name is Ryan. (e&s so erfect, flo y black hair, da33ling blue eyes, beautiful smile, funny, smart and he&s got nice arms aswellH +ddly he&s a twin too, but non"identical, and again I&m not interested in his brother. There was a boy in our school on the year abo#e us who e#eryone said looked like this Ryan. Peo le in my year e#en -okingly shouted the name &Ryan& after him down the school hallway, but I ne#er really noticed this other lad, I was too busy obsessing o#er Ryan ;Q This is long, but bare with me, we&re getting to the more interesting bits now... In year I we got to choose our o tions for the sub-ects we would take for .A.2.,.0. ne4t year. I chose , anish, .I.T. , and 8rama. =Remember I said I liked acting.< 6ecause we took 8rama we got to go to this s ecial &8rama 8ay& at our school. $e were -oined by other year I&s, 10&s, and 11&s from our schools and other schools. $e got s lit into two big grou s, my grou went into the 8rama studio and the other grou stayed in the school hall. In my grou was one of my mates from my year, and Cosh. $e were all told to stand in a big circle at the start. Across the circle I s otted someone. It was that boy e#eryone said looked like Ryan. I looked at him and thought, &(e really does look like Ryan...actually, he really does look like Ryan.& I noticed the same flo y brown hair, =e4ce t a now lighter brown colour than Ryans< the same cute grin, =e4ce t now cuter< and best of all the same sweet, funny, out"going, and cra3y ersonality, e4ce t funnier, and cra3ierH =And a little more childish, but that only made it sweeter.< I decided I wanted to s eak to him and was waiting for the o ortunity to. /or different acti#ities on that day we had to get into twos, but to sto us from airing u with the same friends all the time we were told to free3e and look around the room, the first erson we got eye contact with would be our artner. +ne time we did this I fro3e and started looking round the room, and guess who was the first erson my eyes met. 2ute little Ryan"clone. $e walked u to eachother, and for this acti#ity we were first told to -ust stand there and stair into our artners eyes. It was a little awkward, ess ecialy as he was shorter than me, still I was still ha y to -ust be standing there staring into his eyes. 6ut I didnMt realise what he was thinking, what he was feeling, the things he says were going through his mind. And I wouldn&t realise, untill many months later. As the day went on I realise he was good friends with Cosh, this could ro#e hel sul, we already had a mutual friend. After that day I first mat him I couldn&t sto thinking about that cra3y"little"dude. I decided that I wanted to get to know him better, I tried to get his attention sometimes if I saw him, talking to him a bit now and again. I e#entualy

decided to do the normal thing to do when you made friends with someone new, I looked for him on /ace6ook. I&d o#erheard Cosh calling him by his first name, It was 2allum. I ta ed it in, and then on the little dro down menu, there he wasH I clicked Radd as friendM and a while later, =2anMt remember e4actly how long, not too long< I got the notification. /riends re!uest acce ted. .ater on I was logged in, and his icture a eared in the little online friends bo4. I clicked on it, and ty ed in G letters. RheyM It took a whole ' minutes for him to re ly, but finally it came. RhiM After getting to know him better though chatting on /ace6ook and in school I started to realise he was a retty awesome dude, I was starting to really like him. After that I said hi to him most times he came online on /ace6ook. After a while things seemed to switch round, he would say hey to me almost e#ery time we were online, and he seemed to carry the con#ersations along aswell. This was a change for the better in my o inion, I didnMt ha#e to worry as much about annoying him. Then one day. (e said o ed u on /ace6ook and said hi to me. (e was acting a bit hy eracti#e, which wasnMt really that unusual for him. (e stared ty ing random things. Then he sent a message which looked as if heMs -ust randomly mashed the keyboard, then I looked and realised there were some words hidden in it. Rmkhgdfffwi l u go tyy out utyt yiuyuuu wid lll uuygt meeee !e#godM R+h look,M I thought to myself, Rsomeone must be on his account.M RhahaM I said back. (e started s eaking again; Rso3 brb 6ut then another message was sent from him naomi will u go out with callum l3.M Again, someone must be -oking about, robably Cosh. I -ust forgot about it. As I got to know him better o#er the moths, it started to go from a crush to somthing I can&t describe, I&d ne#er been in lo#e bofore so I didn&t know what to call it. I&#e genuanly ne#er felt like another boy as I do about him. 6ut the sad thing was I could tell beyond doubt that he didn&t feel the same way at all,. ;= $e hardley e#er seemed to hang around together or talk to eachother to much, but wenether we did it was a magical moment for me, -ust being able to s end a short time with that wonderful boy. It went u to a oint when I woke u e#eryday -ust for the chance that he might notice me, or s eak to me, and any day we didn&t talk was a disa ointing one. I had many disa ointing days. I was thinking about him 7E>' and wishing more that anything that I could be with him, but at the same tame I felt so terrable and athetic that he didn&t care about me. (a#e you e#er felt that feeling, of lo#ing someone who dosn&t lo#e you back% Anyway mo#ing on. This year I was in one of our school roductions for the first time, it was a )usical called .ittle ,ho +f (orrors, I was an e4tra. +ne day after school the whole cast had to meet u in the )usic room, I walked in and guess who was standing there. 2rasy"little"dudeH 2allum was in the lay too yayH +ne $ednesday we did a reformance of the Play for some Primary ,chools. )e and him were backstage on our own in the )usic room. Then he suddenley said, N8o you remember ages ago on /acebook you got sent a message from me a arentley asking you out%O N?eah,O I said NIt was someone on your account or whate#er.O N+h,O (e said, then sto ed talking about it. The ne4t night was the first official reformance of our musical.. Again I was in the music room waiting for when I&d ne4t ha#e to go on stage. (e was on the other side of the room, slouching on a chair, he looked a little down. N?ou look de ressed.O I said. N?eah...O

N$hat&s u %O (e looked at me. N?ou really want to know%O I nodded. (e hesitated for a moment, then admitted, N+k, I&#e been trying to ask this girl out for ages.O +h. )y (eart sank a little. (e liked someone else. 6ut I decided I&d be a good friend any way. NAw, that&s cute,O I said. N$ho is she%O (e wouldn&t tell me for ages, but he tried to get me to guess, and ke t gi#ing me little clues. I couldn&t think who it was, his descri tion didn&t fit any girl I knew in out school...04e t, but no. I ushed the silly thought out my mind. I still hadn&t guessed ages later when it was almost time for the last number and the end of out first night. I was waiting -ust behind the stage, then a girl from year D came through the door of the school canteen. N2allum wants to talk to you.O ,he said to me with a smile. I went into the canteen, shaking. I saw him sitting on his own in the dark, he got u as I walked o#er to him. N8id you want me%O I asked ner#ousley. N?eah.O N+h, what is it%O $e stood infront of eachother in the dark canteen, only lit by the dim moonlight from outside. NRemember that /ace6ook message I was talking about, the one asking you out% $ell..................................it was me. *o one was on my account, and if youMd said yes I would ha#e told you.O All I could do was stare back a him in stunned silence. . I&d liked him so much for so long, I ne#er, 0B0R thought he would be standing in front of me saying these things. This was only the sweetest, cutest, most lo#ely boy in the world who I&d secretly been crushing on for almost a year. And those messages he&d sent me on /acebook had been like ' months earlier, so it seems he may ha#e secretly been liking me for a while to. (e looked an me and with a sort of awkward =6ut cute< smile and said 5?ou, don&t ha#e anything to say to that, do you%5 I knew the last number, would be starting soon, so I said, 5$ell, I think we ha#e to be on stage in a sec&.5 I turned around and as I walked towards the door leading backstage he followed behind me, and -ust before we arted, worried that my haste to lea#e would gi#e him the wrong im ression, I !uickly said, 56ut it sounds like a con#ersation I&d like to carry on with later.5 After the last number had finished, we&d gone through the bows, and e#eryone was backstage collecting their stuff, as he walked ast he aused and said to me N?ou know, you don&t need to gi#e me an answer right away.O 0#en though at that oint he hadn&t technically asked me out yet. *ot much later we were sitting together on the ste s in front of the school, as I waited for my )om to come ick me u , with a few other cast members and audience bustling about around us ready to go home. $e didn&t really s eak much. $hen my )om arri#ed and we arted, I felt as if I was in a dream, seriously. I was actually !uestioned whe#er it had all really ha ened, or if it was -ust another one of the other many im ossible daydreams I had about this wonderful boy. 2ould a miracle, so magical, so ama3ing, actually ha en to me in real life% 6ut all though it seemed great, I also knew it was in another way going to be really sad. $hen I got home I logged onto /acebook he o ed u to me. And The con#ersation went like this; (im; hi will you go out with me%%%%%%%% )e; r u being serious% (im; yes )e; so u aint messin about%S (im; no

i dont e4 ect an answer today -ust so you know )e; i&d rather talk about dis in school S (im; no roblem The ne4t day in school he didn&t s eak to me, until that night at the second erformance of our school&s lay. $ell we were on our own in the music room. The two of us were alone at last for the first time since he&s confessed his feelings to me. $e were sitting a cou le of meters away from each other. /or a moment there was a a bit of a silence, until he said, N,o, I guess what I said on /acebook last night is kind of awkward...O N,o it was you%O I re lied. I still wasn&t sure if it was all real. (e told me it had been him, but I still couldn&t be 100T. (ow could this ama3ing, lo#ely boy, who I&d liked so much for so long, feel remotely the same way, about a girl like me% I was haunted with doubts like, maybe it&s his friends daring him to ull a rank% I had to be sure before I re#ealed too much, at this oint he didn&t realised that I&d e#er fancied him. ,o I ke t asking !uestions. N(ow do I know you&re being serious%O (e continued to reassure me that he was genuine, but I still !uestioned him, and refused to say too much. 0#en though it was starting to become ob#ious that this was for real, no matter how unbelie#able that is, I still carried hiding information, and a#oiding gi#ing him an answer. I knew e4actly what I was doing. +ddly I&d been lanning this for a while, though I ne#er thought realisticly that I&d ha#e to ut my cra3y lans into action. 6ut at that moment I didn&t realise that things weren&t going to go e4actly to lan... /rom that say I started to see a whole other side to him, I ne#er knew he was such a romantic. 6ecause I was still unsure about things, he tried to ro#e it to me that he was telling the true. (e started coming out with all these cute little cheesy little lines. N?ou&re eyes are like glistening ri#ers of blue...I would reach out and luck e#ery star from the sky -ust to see you smile.O And a few others, it was the cutest thing I&d e#er seenH 6ut in the end he basically got to the conclusion that there was something he needed to say, or do, before I could gi#e him my answer. That night after the lay me and him were -ust sort of talking to each other backstage. $e were each standing against o osite walls of a hallway, trying to talk about all these things going on. )y )om said she&d te4t me when she came to ick me u . I ut my hone on silent. +ur friend Cosh was waiting for him im atiently, and sort floating about near us awkwardly, occasionaly moaning at him to hurry u . 6y now most of the other cast members knew what was going on with me and him, that he&s asked me out. +ne other e4tra called Adam came u to us. I&m not really sure if he&s mates with this boy or not, he says they&re sort of on off friends. A lot of the time this Adam is the one making fun of him, but then now and again sort of saw moments of some weird closeness between them. Anyway, Adam came u to us and started teasing him about all that was going on, saying things like, N(a#e you kissed her yet%%O The two of them bickered between themsel#es for a moment. NIt&s ok, I&#e kissed girls on a first date before.O NThis isn&t a date he told him.O (e went and stood facing Adam and continued to talk to him. Anyway, Adam went e#entually, and then we both finally had to go as well. Cust before we did lea#e he asked me if I wanted a hug, the first he he e#er ga#e me. $e left and later that night we talked on /ace6ook again; (im; hi )e; heyS (im; u ok )e; yeh u%S (im; still trying 7 figure out wat 7 do

)e; oh (im; im kinda athetic arnt i )e; noooo not at all dont think thatS (im; ok but is wat adam is saying wat i need 7 do%%%%%% do u no wat im on about %%% )e; yes i do no wat ur on aboutS (im; is he right%%%% you still there )e; yes (im;ok u dont want 7 answer that do u =A few minuets later< (im;hello )e;hi (im; u dont want 7 answer my re#ious !uestion do u do you want to come off this sub-ect%%% )e; and on to what one% (im; not sure i like you but do you like me%%%%%%% im sorry )e; for wat% (im; going on and on )e; noo dont b sorry (im; if i do or say somthing that might ruin our friendshi )e; u wont (im; still )e; % (im; l3 answer this ok do u want me 7 do wat adam said ill see u tomorow at lunch ok g7g

bye ?ou may be able to tell this is no were near the end of the story, loads more interesting stuff has ha ened since. There&s more ga s to the story to fill in. 6ut it&s getting late and I&#e got to go. I know you robably fiond my writing boring but if you&d like to hear the rest of my story -ust message me and I&d be ha y to tell. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" i don&t know where i&m going but i know im on my way """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I don&t really ha#e time right now. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&m a 1I year old male now. I was shy, !uiet, and reser#ed. I had no control o#er my life =as melodramatic as it sounds<, my arents made e#ery decision for me. ,heltered, nai#e, and innocent. 8iagnosed with A8(8, I was also drugged. The first act of rebellion was not taking my medicine. I&d say I took it, but ocket it then throw it away at school. This was around :th grade, I think. I was de ressed but didn&t know it. +#erweight as well. 0#entually, I started to e4ercise to lose weight, ressured by my arents and brother. I hated myself e#ery time I ate, I&d -udge how well I did that day by how much I ate. I was into the military, #ideo games, airsoft, and the like. *ormal kid stuff. I was a douche to my friends, because it was the one scenario I could take control in. ,trict arents that o#erreacted to e#erything. )y dad was much more lenient than my mom was. Bery high e4 ectations of good grades, to lose weight, being a good kid, etc. Also with strict unishments, as in for recei#ing a 2 on a test I&d be grounded from e#erything. 0#erything. I was su osed to sit in the li#ing room on the sofa, not doing anything. *o reading, no #ideo games, no TB, no friends. I worked really hard in school to try and get good grades, forsaking e#erything social, including learning social skills. I wasn&t allowed to get a cell hone, my dri#er&s license, or a -ob. I was an awkward nerdy kid, and this all went on until -unior year of high school. I got a new rescri tion for my A8(8, this time 2oncerta instead of Adderall. I decided to gi#e it a shot, because I was tired of being wrong all the time in my arents eyes. I started being slightly more social, and a girl asked if she could buy some from me. $hy would she want them% I reali3ed you could get high off of them, and one day decided to take an e4tra third of a ill. *othing ma-or, looking back at it. I lo#ed the feeling it ga#e me. I thought well shit, if this makes me feel good, what other ills do we ha#e that can do the same thing% I weighed my o tions for a little bit, and decided it was too dangerous and 5bad5 to try anything else. That was until my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. A month later, my dad was diagnosed with adrenal cancer. I went through a hase of trying e#ery and any ill I could get my hands on. Painkillers, u ers, antian4iety, antinausea, anti sychotics, dissociati#es. I mean, they were medicines, right% *ot drugs, because drugs are bad. I tried drinking e#ery once in awhile, but ne#er stuck with it. )y mom got o#er her cancer, but in s ring of my -unior year my dad assed away. (e was the only thing se arating me from my mom, being a #oice of reason. ,o it was -ust her to care for my little brother, myself, and my older brother, who was in college during this time. That summer, I tried weed for the first time. I lo#ed it. I lo#ed how it wasn&t harsh, scary, nauseating, and didn&t make me feel guilty about it. I smoked e#ery once in awhile throughout the summer, senior year it icked u . I was making many more friends, my de ression and eating habits im ro#ing. I was still awkward as shit, but it was im ro#ing as well. I had some sense of self"worth. I !uit taking ills for recreation. I was ha y. I had a full scholarshi for Air /orce R+T2. *o real worries. The summer before college started, I decided to try .,8. It was the single most im ortant things I&#e done in my entire life. It made me reali3e that I was being a dick to my friends, I was an ass, and I -ust wasn&t a nice erson in general. I decided to change that, and it also com letely remo#ed my de ression. I had been star#ing myself to lose weight, and looking in the mirror made me see that I was a good"looking kid, that wasn&t o#erweight. )y self"confidence skyrocketed. I tried mushrooms later that summer, and had a bad tri . It was -ust as, if not more, im ortant than my wonderful acid tri . It made me reali3e that I was ultimately res onsible for what ha ens to me.

*ot my mom, not my friends, not anyone. I needed to take control and do what I lo#ed, not what was e4 ected. I !uit smoking for the drug test re!uired for the Air /orce. I had been ha#ing reser#ations about -oining, unsure if I could harm anyone now. I went in for an orientation a week before school started, and it was there I made my first real decision. /uck what was e4 ected, I&m doing what&s best for me as a erson, not me as a bank account and student. I declined the scholarshi , and it was the ha iest I&#e e#er felt. I can still remember walking back in the rain from the R+T2 building back to my down, smiling and not caring that I was getting wet. )aking that sim le decision made all the difference. I had control. I was a erson. I made a bunch of friends in school, and I started smoking again. I was legitimately ha y for the first time. I was free. *o worries. *o one breathing down my back. I did fine in school, by normal standards. 7.5" G.0. That wasn&t nearly good enough for my mom. (a#ing newfound confidence, I stood my ground with her for the first time in my life. It felt wonderful. 6efore I went home for winter break, I acked u my grinder, bowl, one"hitter, and a !uarter of medical. )y mom found it when I went home. I told her the mental, hysical, medical, and emotional benefits. ,he told me I was addicted. I was grounded all break, and my de ression came back. I was treated like an inferior human being. .ike I wasn&t worth shit. I laid on the sofa and cried for the second half of break. I couldn&t hold it in anymore. )y anore4ia came back as well. I icked u a cou le hits of acid for when school started again. As soon as I got back to school for winter !uarter, the stress was too much. I started smoking cigarettes, where before I only smoked cigars, 6lack """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $hat if I want it to be more then 5000 words% """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I&#e li#ed in a small southern =American< town for most of my life. I&#e gone through 0lementary, middle, and high school and am now heading off to college in about a month. I ha#e a su orti#e, lo#ing family. There ha#e been #ery few tragedies in my life. I&#e had my rough atches, but nothing too de#astating. I used to be a rather shy erson, but I&#e formed a tight, close grou of friends that I lo#e, and am going to miss #ery much when I lea#e for college. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $hen I was like 5 and my brother was 7 my dad got into all kinds of drugs and he got caught robbing a bank and went to -ail... Then my mom couldn&t ay for the house bills so we were constantly changing schools and houses and my mom ne#er really had a real -ob do we had no choice to start li#ing with my grand arents because if $e didn&t... $e would be in an or hanage then one day my mom -ust left one day... )y grand arents ha#e custity so we li#e with them and I can&t be taken back by my arents. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" it all started when i waas burn. i was a young boy when i was both, and i am still a young bot o then li#ed life as i did theonf eons tinging """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I was born into the lower"middle class. I grew u , went on #acation a cou le of times, learned to make good grades, became a 2hristian, became agnostic, reali3ed I had reached the age where it was time to start making something of my life, became de ressed about the fact that I hadn&t yet, and then decided to make sure I thought about where I wanted to go in life and make sure I did at least one thing e#ery day to get myself closer to that lace. And that brings us to the resent, where for three more weeks I will be a bored 71"year"old summer intern. That&s one slightly o#ersim lified #ersion of the whole show. $hat about your life% """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""