Who are you? How do I know you? I asked the unknown guy on a personal chat. Although I already knew that I didn't personally know him. He reassured me that he only followed me to get more followers. "I see that we have a mutual friend." He said. That was Tony Olgert. A friend I had when I lived back home, before my mom and I moved in with my Aunt and cousin. I was okay with the fact that this guy I didn't know followed me because we both were friends with Tony. It seemed safe. I kept it to myself that an unknown guy followed me for awhile. But when I told my mom, she kind of freaked out. I didn't blame her, that is how teens get kidnapped nowadays. But I still pushed the idea towards her that it was ok. After she spoke with Tony's mom to confirm this guy was legit, she was fine with it. As time went on, we kept chatting, and I found out his name was Chris. I even checked with Tony to see if Chris was a citizen of the United States and everything checked out. It got to the point where we were taking pretty much every day and then we got deep and personal. We shared our darkest secrets. I was shocked by his dirty little secret. I almost couldn't move, it made me feel uncomfortable. When we had first started communicating online, I was excited that a boy wanted to follow me. I got thoughts like, “is this finally the day I get a boyfriend?” All normal young teenage thoughts. But when he shared his deepest secret with me, I wasn't sure how to feel. I guess I felt a little less interested in him than I had before. 

 Now, your most likely asking yourself, “what is his secret”, and “it can't be that bad.” It was kinda bad, but at the same time not totally. And no Nana, he isn't gay. I can't say what Chris's secret is, because everything I'm writing, everything I am saying, is true. Every single part of it. 

I guess after a week or so we were still talking, and I had began catching feelings for him again. But a part of me questioned, can someone catch feelings when chatting with someone online? Chris ended up giving me his digits and a picture of him and his dog. There was still this burning question I had in the back of my mind: who really is Chris? I never met him, so I wouldn't know. I don't know what it's like to be around him, I don't know how he acts, or what he says and I have never even heard the sound of his voice. All I know about him is his deep, dark secrets. But I have no place to store those. I had dreams of him at night. Weird, I know! But it was my brain’s way of trying to figure out who he was. How he walks, how he drives his car, how his family celebrate holidays. I mean, it's been two months and I haven't even talked on the phone with the guy. Like a real, actual conversation. All I had was a screen with a bunch of words that could be perceived in a million and one possible ways. Texting is fine, but let's be honest, texting is just texting. There was nothing wrong with how he communicated with me, but sometimes you just need to hear it for yourself. An actual voice. We’d joke around over texting at midnight. He would make me smile, laugh if you will, which isn't hard to do. But I have nothing to base him off with. I'm sure he's a good person, but how can you know if you truly know a person? I honestly don't know if I can say I truly know Chris.

Trying to act like you know somebody over text is real difficult. We've talked about meeting up, but is it wrong to say I am kinda afraid of meeting Chris? I haven’t had the most positive experience with guys before. But I just don’t know, and that's part of the reason I am not sure about this whole situation, because I hate not knowing the unknown. You have suggestions for me like, "Just tell him how you feel." But in turn, I have a question for you. How? How can I tell him how I feel, describing all the different emotions and feelings I'm having for him without scaring him away or coming off clingy or desperate. I for one know how it feels when someone is desperate and clingy. And by the way, I did have a conversation with him. The one where I told him I liked him. I told him I was going to try and get rid of these feelings, but then he said the words that started this whole thing. 

“I like you too.”

So after all this, I started  talking to Tony, because I was thinking if I talked to Tony he can help me get closer to Chris, and get to know him better. I know it seems stalkingly, but that wasn't my intention. But all I was able to find was that Tony had asked Chris if we have been talking, and Chris agreed. But that's all I got. Needless to say, I would not make a great detective. Wish I knew more, but I don't. I constantly think to myself, why is this happening to me? Is there something I’m meant to learn from this? A lesson that I'm not supposed to trust strangers online who I have never met. But he claimed to know my friend, Tony. Why would this just start just to end? It doesn’t make sense, and aren't things supposed to make sense? If life did that to me that would be so cruel and unforgivable. Is life just dangling this chance in front of my face?

So how do we resolve this issue? This problematic situation that I have somehow managed to get my feelings involved in.

How do we know what's real and what's not? That answer is we don't, unless we experience it with the human eye. Part of me hopes that I will never meet Chris, that no relationship will come out of this, because I don't want to get my hopes up. I thought things were supposed to happen for a reason. But with all the boys I've liked, I found tons of reasons to be with them, but nothing good happened. However I did explain to Chris that I didn't want to get rejected. He told me that he wasn't planning on saying no, but plan doesn't mean promise, so I don't want a plan I want a promise. But promises are hard at the teenage stage of our lives, because we have a hard time keeping them. You're probably thinking I'm overthinking or overreacting, but honestly I'm just trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I invited him over, and I've invited him to my birthday party, but he doesn't want to drive that far. Which is understandable, because I live in the middle of freaking nowhere. So I tried to compromise by moving the venue of my party closer to him, but he doesn't want me changing it for him.

I don't want to be the annoying girl. I don't want to annoy Chris, I'm just afraid of screwing this up. I just want a chance. I have a chance, because I deserve a chance, and everyone deserves a chance. Why does this have to be such a mystery? I have had a few chances with guys like this before, and in a matter of months it would twist, and be confusing for both sides. For a while I believed my love life was jinxed. But what if this whole time, I've just been playing my cards wrong.

another reason why I'm afraid to meet Chris, is that I don't look like most girls. I don't have all the qualities that most guys want a girlfriend, but I'm me. Tony created a group video chat for us last night, and Chris didn't even join the video chat. He didn't say a word. What really kind of hurt, is that if he was busy doing something why didn't he just say, “guys I'm busy.” Or when he was done being busy, couldn’t he come back to the group chat and say "hey sorry that I didn't talk to you guys I was busy cleaning the house or whatever."maybe he's just as nervous to talk to me as I am him. 

At the beginning of all this, it wasn't looks that attracted me to Chris. Not to say Chris isn't handsome or anything, I just wasn't completely attracted to him at first. But as we kept texting I saw differently. His humor, my curiosity, his kindness, my imagination, his loyalty, and my appreciation. His values seemed pure of heart, but I can't help but think, does he really like me as he says he does? We've never met in real life, so there's no true evidence. It's funny how people say things to you but don't mean it. All of this that I'm saying is in no way meant to hurt Chris. Chris didn't do anything wrong. Although, I have all these doubts, and there's a part of me that feels some time he will. I hope that Chris didn’t just start something to have it end. I can tell when things don't go the way he plans he doesn't like it very much. I feel if I fully admitted the feelings I have for him, he would feel awkward and not know what to say and wouldn't talk to me.

There's this other question that I have, along with twenty other thousand of them. If this doesn’t work out between Chris and I,  how am I going to react? After a lot of consideration, I can only be honest with myself. I would be pretty devastated. Many times I've tried to do the whole relationship thing, and it would end before it would start. So yeah, I would feel anguished. People say ‘be more positive.’ I am negative, because I have never had a positive outcome in this aspect of my life. I'm thinking that's because I tried too hard. Too hard to be perfect, too hard to be likeable. People say just be yourself, but not all the time I know who I am. For the most part, I believe I'm a good person. Kind, creative, smart. But when it comes to love or liking someone, I question every move I make because guys don't stay in my life. I need at least one guy to stay. To take care of me, to appreciate me, to support me, to love me unconditionally. I'm worried I may never get that.

I'm anxious, because if I publish his book and Chris reads it and figures out it's about him, what is he going to think or say? This book isn't really about him, it's mostly about me and my feelings. I guess if he ever questions it, I’ll just tell him that it's about my feelings, and your just included. I'm trying to avoid holding on too tight to him, but if I don't hold on I'm afraid he'll slip away, just like all the other boys I've liked before. Love is beautiful, but very hard to comprehend. I mean, not even 93 year old couples who've been married for 50 years will admit that they have it completely down. But on the bright side, if Chris does read this, then I'm not hiding my feelings for him anymore. It's complex, because some days I feel Chris doesn't like me, and that he doesn't have feelings for me. Sometimes I feel he ignores me. I get that people get busy, and Chris has a life of his own, but I guess what I'm saying is I'm not 100% convinced he wants to meet me or wants me in his life. Who knew liking someone would leave you with a whole bunch of side effects.

Everyday I wake up and go to school, and I often find myself spacing out during class. I imagine Chris walking into the school to surprise me, and us eating lunch together. Pathetic I know. Or I imagine us running into each other at the grocery store, and both of us just being completely speechless. I know Chris wouldn’t really do this, but ever since I was young I was a daydreamer. As time goes on, the longer I wait to meet Chris, and I just keep daydreaming about what it will be like if I do. I know some things about Chris, like his three favorite songs, and that we do have a lot in common, except for the fact that he doesn't like to dance and I do. Oh that was a funny conversation. I do maybe know Chris a little more than I thought I did. I wouldn’t say a whole lot, but a fair amount. Somehow I know what he would and wouldn’t do. 

This was every single confrontation, not just with Chris, but all the guys. After we said we liked each other, they would just call it off without even making it official. Before we were an item, they just moved on. Like, "no, sorry I just don't think this is going to work out, I just don't like you as much as I thought I did."Maybe that's what they actually thought but didn't say because they wanted to spare my feelings. Thank God for my friend Elizabeth. If it wasn't for her, I don't know how I could have deal with this whole crushing on my own. Elizabeth and I have been friends for three years, but she's honestly the best thing that has ever happened to me. She's the only one helping me find Chris's real identity, and it's been quite the challenge. So Chris, if you're reading this, you've managed to stump us. But we're not giving up.

As I'm sitting in my room, I gather all the information about Chris. It seems I know more about him than I thought I did previously. I know his middle name, his birthday, his nationality, that he has no allergies. His coffee order, the type of car he has, how he loves to listen to music ever since he was little but doesn't like to dance because he has no rhythm. How he will listen to people's problems and give them advice, that he's funny and nice when he gets warmed up to someone. How he loves puppies but has an extreme weakness for babies. He hates group chats, because all his family talks about is their significant other. His favorite holiday used to be Christmas, but not anymore. Chris told me I seem a hell of a lot better than the previous girls he’s liked. He says that he really enjoys talking to me, and he said he didn’t just want to be friends. but how can any of that be true? It’s October 21st and all we have is silence.

So I found my climax. Proud of me? Not knowing how he truly feels towards me. Afraid he wouldn't like how I look, and how I talk. I have a fear of letting guys in my life, because they don't stay. I don’t know if he wants to talk to me because there's dead silence. Would Ibe a fool for telling him all of my feelings? For telling Chris that I liked him a lot, for sending flirty texts? Or what if one day, out of the blue, I called him babe? What would he think of me? What would you think of me? Even when I do meet him, If I meet him, would he get weirded out if I reach for his hand? Or worse, kiss him? Do I ask if I can do any of those things? Do I need permission before I make a move? Let alone, if you knew some of my other deepest secrets my childhood, you wouldn’t think the same of me. I'm not perfect, and I know that's what he'll see. Just a million thoughts in my head, that keep spinning like the Earth in a constant loop. 

Every time I text him, he ignores me. It's ridiculous. You would think if he says he likes me, he would do more. Yeah, you’d think. but that's obviously not the case here. Thought he liked me, because that's what he told me. That’s the reality of this world. People lie, people ghost you, and people hurt you. At least all the boys I've liked do. I've fallen for many guys that claim they love me, but they don't. If they really loved me, they would stay. 

So I've managed to embarrass myself with Chris. I tried explaining to him that he doesn't actually know me, because we've never met face-to-face before. But he thinks differently, he thinks I'm fun to mess around with. That I'm really nice and funny. But if he really likes me like he says he does, he needs to go halfway on this. So I managed to humiliate myself. I told him that I've been trying to figure out who he is, and he asked me how I was doing that as if maybe I was possessive and stalking. But I'm not. I tried to explain to him I'm not psycho, and only reason why I'm trying to figure out who he is is ‘cuz I've never met him and I kind of like him. He was weirded out, I could tell. Chris tried telling me that's not what he was meaning, but he probably did. It's not his fault it's mine. I'm socially awkward. There was probably a better way to phrase my curiosity. But I wouldn't know how he would have responded to that because I didn't say that.

I honestly don't know how to fix this, I really don't. I don't even know why the universe wanted me to meet Chris online in the first place. If it has to be complicated and complex, then why? Liking someone is like an ocean, Windy and waves in the storm. Why doesn't this make sense? Why can't it be like every other person's love story. Where the guy gets the girl, and they live happily ever after. Well, apparently that’s not the case for this story. looking back when Chris started following me online, should I have just declined instead? Maybe we wouldn't have gotten this far, maybe we would have never had a connection, maybe I would never had so many doubts, and maybe Chris would never have to decided whether he really likes me or not. So here I am I'm never going to figure out who Chris really is, never going to meet him, never going to know how it would feel to have a connection with Chris in real life. What do you call a person you've never met? A person you used to know. I never know if I will ever meet Chris were have a future with Chris or not. I am not a fortune teller. But I have to have an ending to this book, so you choose. How do you think this book ends? How should it end?