Stephanie Georgopulos

If you’re working a 9-5 or some nontraditional equivalent and your job requires you use the internet, you’re spending approximately 33% of your day online. A lot can happen during those eight hours. We Get To Know People. People we already know, people we’ve met once, people we’ve never met at all.

‘What do you do’ is a broad question, you know? I do a lot. I eat grapefruit, for example. I begin to read books and then put them down when I’m 90% through and then never pick them back up, for some reason.

Hot guys, we’ve got a problem. See, most of you are great, which is what prompted me to write this letter. I’d like to voice my concern for you — the intelligent, the passionate, the interesting; those of you who handle uncomfortable situations like an upstanding person.

Memorizing the lyrics to a song used to be an accomplishment, just like writing your name without inversing any of the letters. Tying a shoe. Walking three steps. Reciting the alphabet.

How, in an age where we earnestly refer to ourselves as “plugged-in” and “wired,” are we taking ourselves so seriously that we bemoan the use of a smiley face now and again?

I hope I recognize this guy, seems to be a recurring problem of mine. Hope I haven’t been betrayed by beer goggles again. I guess this issue would resolve itself if I quit drunkenly accepting dates but like, no one asks me out otherwise.

Just because my parents don’t understand the value of tradition and sharing and humblebragging via annual family newsletters doesn’t mean I should follow in their aloof footsteps. So I’ve prepared a newsletter of my own.

Lines like, “Where are all of my clothes,” and, “I have nothing to wear,” and, “Do you have a black top I can borrow,” or maybe, “Christ I’m fat,” and simply, “Goddammit” are uttered at alarming frequency.

And one by one, the elevator empties; the temptations dissolve and the whispers quiet and there’s just you left, you who set your sights so high, you who is best suited to take this thing as far as it can go, you who wants to soar.

Because you’ve never left smudged fingerprints on the walls, and you’ve never hidden a report card in your pillowcase, and you’ve never sat in the driveway waiting for some boy to pick you up, some boy whose name you’ll forget in five years.

You might feel more inclined to listen to Monday-themed songs in earnest, namely “Manic Monday” by the Bangles but potentially “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas if you had great sex over the weekend, or “Blue Monday” by New Order if you haven’t slept since Thursday.

I enjoy seeing you insecure, vulnerable. I like to watch red steam light up your cheeks, a spreading mist of shame when you think you’ve done something unacceptable like missing a step on the stairs or not having the perfect answer to something I’ve said.