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You find strange things on the internet especially when you’re bored and sometimes, having no social life makes matters worse. My name is Choi Jinri and I’m seventeen; I’m a part-time student and a part-time couch potato. My life revolves around home, school, and friends but after dismissal, I already have my own world. I don’t hang out with my friends anymore and I go directly home most of the time.

   Things get lonely sometimes because of how I live my life. At home, there’s only me because my parents go home when I’m already asleep and they leave while I’m still asleep. That’s how workaholic they are that they couldn’t even give me a sibling. The house is always empty and so is the fridge. I can cook, yeah, but it’s not like Mom provides the ingredients for me. If I know, whenever they arrive home from work, they already bought food for me to eat for the whole day next day. That’s their routine and if not well, hello instant noodles!

   Maybe, I’ve gotten used to being alone that’s why I don’t go out with my friends often. It’s like my friendship with them only exists in school. Once we step out of the campus, we’re strangers. I don’t think they mind; they’re pretty much okay with it but they tell me that sometimes, they couldn’t help but worry even if I assure them that I’m fine and still alive.

   I remember one Friday, Jiyoung, one of my friends, invited me to a party. I refused because . . . It’s a freaking Friday! I could just sleep it off for all I care. Why would I want to waste my time on something that isn’t even my thing?

   “This is why you are so white like a ghost; you don’t go out of your house.” Suji, another friend of ours, once commented.

   Or maybe, it’s just in the genes. I thought.

   So there. My social life is practically dead. I spend my time at home, watching random videos, movies, and series online, read fan fictions or manhwas, fan-girl and stalk about my favorite bands, or search Mr. Google about things I don’t understand. It’s hard though because all the feels I have from reading and watching and fan-girling are all bottled up inside of me; I’ve got no one to spazz with and my friends can’t even relate because their world is different from mine. Theirs is full of blasting music and lights full of colors and a big glittering ball hanging on the ceiling—Jiyoung would always correct me that it’s called a disco ball but well, whatever. It’s not like I’m interested on what it’s called or something.

   Sometimes, when I feel like not doing anything at all, I would just sleep it off or daydream about a prince who will climb up the walls of this lonely tower I have built to myself and tell me about what the world really has in store for me. Sounds like Rapunzel but more like a story of a princess who doesn’t even exist. All the princesses I know are willing to discover the world.

   I don’t.

   WANT TO CHAT WITH STRANGERS? CLICK HERE!

   I often see weird ads on a site’s sides whenever I watch movies or read online but this “chat with strangers” ad is new to me. I don’t usually click on ads because some of them are . . . really inappropriate like whoa there, chill but this one got my curiosity. Chat with strangers, huh? So I clicked on it and a new tab opened. The address bar says: chatemall.com*.

   Little did I know that one day, I will be thanking this site.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: *chatemall.com does not exist.