My Dear Friend Yulia

Yulia and I met on SpaceHey around 4 months ago. Since then, her online presence along with any record of online activity has been completely purged from the internet.

Our first interaction was through a comment made to one of my blogs, a silly short story I wrote about anteaters, saying "reading this felt like dreaming lol!". Afterwards, she would comment on another blog post of mine about making art, saying "this is the bestest blog post i've ever read!!!". I thought to myself, they seem cool! I'll add them! But they didn't have many friends...? Oh well, they can reject the request if they wish. So I sent a friend request... It was accepted and shortly after I received an instant message! I don't remember exactly what was said, but it was to the effect of "eeeeek omigawsh hi hi hi!! thank you for adding me!!!! i was so happy to see your friend request you seem so cool!!!!"

She introduced herself as Yulia, (different from her username) and that day, our conversation flowed so smoothly that we ended up talking until the sun set, and continued until the sun rose again. We clicked instantly, it was as though we had known each other for years prior, and we were only catching up.

Yulia was such an interesting person, I really don't think I've met somebody like her before. She loved Girl's Last Tour, it was probably her favorite thing. She loved eating CalorieMate food blocks similar to the characters in the show, as well as other Japanese goodies and snacks. She was silly and loved joking around. Sometimes she would open up about her own life, and I'd come to learn that she was also a bit of a shy person, but above all she was a kind, sweet, loving, forgiving, thoughtful, intelligent, and a creative individual. And in a short time, she would become one of my closest friends and someone who I talked to everyday on this very website.

It was a unique experience for the both of us, becoming such close friends with someone online to the extent that we message regularly and trusted each other to the degree that we could go from joking to more deep topics, and lean on each other during hard times. She particularly liked hearing the stories I had come up with like my comic book ideas, and also entertained by some of my funny stories from my childhood as well.

Suddenly one day, in the middle of conversation, she told me she was leaving the internet in order to take her own life more seriously and take it into her own hands. It was a shock to me, but I was willing to support her in whatever she was wanting to dive into. Still, I was worried for her, and was sad to see her go. We wished each other farewell, said that we would miss the other, made promises to ourselves to tackle life with all we had, and promptly, surely, all of her online presence disappeared before me, including all of our texts, and her profile, and her accounts on other websites.

Following her departure, I found myself checking the website frequently, perhaps out of habit, or hoping that maybe I would see a message from her just like usual. But no message came. There was a void left where she used to take space in my life. I felt the loneliness deeply and couldn't bring myself to log on to SpaceHey for a while.

I started thinking about what the impact that she left on me was. We had been friends for only about 3 months, but it really felt like years. It felt like in every conversation we were trying to make up for the lost time we had accrued by not meeting one another earlier. All from a website about posting blogs and dressing up your profile in gifs and images using html code. But now, there was no remaining evidence of our friendship on here anymore, when she deleted her account, every comment she left under any blog or under my profile also went with it, as though it never existed.

Except she did exist. All those hours spent talking with one another, all the drawings and doodles she inspired me to make, the memories attached to events in my life like when we celebrated me getting accepted into a job together, all very real. She left a very real impact on me, helped me be more confident, gave me new perspectives on life, and I knew that I would miss her greatly.

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I would like to share a bit about myself now. I historically have not been the type to have lots of online friends to talk to regularly and do all sorts of activities together with. In fact, most of my online time was spent absolutely talking to nobody and exploring simply what was already present on the links and web pages. But there has always been this desire within me to make these online friends, where we can bond over our shared interests. At some point this started feeling like it was impossible for me. Getting on the computer felt like a wandering, lonely expedition. I decided, despite this, that I wanted to give it a real shot. I created online profiles where I could share my art in the hopes that it would allow me to find those other close friends who I could connect with. At some point, my sister recommended this website to me, so I created an account and started posting blogs on here as well.

To me, Yulia is proof that the internet is a beautiful place where those close friendships can be found. It's not always easy, and you will feel some friction trying to talk with certain people. But with the right person, it'll feel like ice skating on a frozen lake with how little friction there is. And despite all the negativity that is prevalent on online forums and social media platforms nowadays, where it feels like everyone goes on just to complain about mundane things and hate pile on others just based on one post, as if nobody wants to listen to one another, please remember that there is somebody on here just like you who just wants to make friends on their little computer.

And so I dedicate this piece to my dear friend Yulia. I pray wherever you are, that you're kicking it, and that you're surrounded by plenty of caloriemates and good people to keep you company! Miss you lawts!!

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