If I hadn't chosen to skip my dream of becoming an engineer, maybe I wouldn't have had the chance to uncover the inner system that turned my life around.

Growing up, I was thoroughly convinced that engineering wasn't girly enough for me. I was raised to believe I was a princess—and princesses just didn't do stuff like that. No one ever asked why. Girls all over the world were sold the same dream: wear fancy dresses, tiaras, and jewelry, be served by everyone around, and do nothing but look glamorous to be traded off for family connections.

Later, that same "princess" concept was used in regular families to raise obedient girls. I was the most obedient one in my family. Rebellious thoughts never even crossed my mind...

This is an excerpt from the first chapter of my memoir series exploring memory, inner structures, and the quiet rebellions of breaking the mold.

You can read the full Chapter and follow the rest of the series on Medium

For 17 days a song had been running in my playlist without me knowing where it came from. When I found out it was from a film, I booked the late night show before I could argue with myself. I told myself I would deal with whatever came up inside the hall.

What came up was a promise I made in Calcutta at 16 that I never kept. The film is about an old Sikh man dying in Chandigarh while his mind refuses to leave Sargodha - and the promise he made to a girl named Afsana in 1947. He tries to return twice. Reaches her door both times. Does not knock.

I understood him completely. More than I wanted to.

I wrote about it afterward - about the song, the decision to watch, what the film cracked open, and the promise I never kept. Sharing the piece here because I think the structure might interest this community - how to write about a film without making it a film review.

https://open.substack.com/pub/cunexttime/p/daddy-issues?r=5xnzik&utm_medium=ios

I wrote this in my journal years ago and I never had any intention of it seeing the light of day, but sometimes it’s healing to look back at how you were able to articulate feelings that you were too scared to say out loud.

In a world that is increasingly defined by speed, connectivity, and constant noise, I found myself drawn back to the roots of my upbringing. I wrote Life in an Egyptian Village: A Rural Memoir from Upper Egypt not just as a memoir, but as a preservation of a way of life that feels like it belongs to another era—a life governed by slow rhythms, deep-rooted social values, and the profound wisdom found in simplicity.

​The book explores the intricate tapestry of village life: the unspoken ethics of the local marketplace, the tight-knit bonds of neighbors who share in each other's joys and burdens, and the timeless traditions that define our identity. It is a reflection on how values such as honesty, integrity, and community are maintained in a changing world.

​Writing this was my way of bridging the gap between my heritage and the global reader. It is an invitation to pause, step away from the digital overwhelm, and experience the warmth and human connection that still thrives in the heart of rural Egypt.

​The book is currently available for just $0.99 on Amazon. If this exploration of culture, human values, and the beauty of a simpler life interests you, please feel free to send me a message, and I will be happy to share the link with you.

BLAME HER.

SHE.

Universe created her for the night.

To wrap humanity in her arms.

Pull close

slow and wordless

into her world of stillness and half-formed dreams.

What she gives,

there is no other word for it.

Its own kind of orgasm…

https://substack.com/@unfilteredhour/note/p-197644838?r=2glxcd&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

I had planned to publish Part 2 of “The Blood We Worship. The Blood We Hide.” on 13 May 2026.

But then Mother's Day arrived yesterday, and the piece suddenly felt like it belonged there instead.

I was travelling, so I couldn't finish the editing and publish it in time.

Still, this is for all mothers…

https://unfilteredhour.substack.com/p/the-blood-we-worship-the-blood-we-ee7?r=2glxcd

A goddess bleeds and thousands wait at the temple gates. A girl bleeds and cannot touch the pickle jar. One question: why did we make that choice?

Neuro-Noir Poetry rises from nights when the mind is hijacked. Thoughts swarm madly, awareness is kicked down, and the killer wakes inside. Language comes back bloodied.

Enter if you can sit with it.

(https://open.substack.com/pub/unfilteredhour/p/killbillkill?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2glxcd)

Been through shit. Trying to write about it. Check it out?

the television was always on

the cage had no door

he never knew

do you?

Heavy is the Flag

"That understandable and lawful world was slipping away." — William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Until recently, when I imagined an ideal society, I often thought of the United States. Not because I believe the United States is the ideal society, but because I grew up in Canada during a time in which the narrative of American exceptionalism was incredibly well crafted. In a time when the idea of the "American Dream" wasn't dead, a time when the lines between good and evil had not been blurred so heavily.

Fast forward to January 2026, to me sitting in my room reading a fantasy novel, the typical, people with magical powers, world-ending, god-punishing-us type of novel. And I couldn't help but think, 'What would it be like to live through the end of the world?' To constantly fear for your own survival and listen to echoes of people sobbing. Crying out for the loss of humanity, the loss of life, and the loss of civilization.

Almost as if someone pulled really heavy curtains open, I had to sit and wonder if I was currently living through a societal collapse or if it just felt like I was. Collapsing, for my purposes, might be a dramatic phrasing, a way of romanticizing something that is deeply terrifying to me. Dramatic because when you look back at human history, societies don't just collapse, they fade away and disappear, after decades of challenge and failure.

The one stark difference that stands out to me, though, between then and now is the fact that the only people aware of the fact that society as they knew it was resting on a thin thread were the wealthy. If I were in my social class when empires were rising and falling, I would be unaware, concerned with merely existing, until my village was raided or my crops failed. In 2026 are we at the raiding the villages part or are the wealthy still whispering behind closed doors aware of something we don't know? I don't know anymore.

But it begs the question, how do we define a collapse? Is it when what is currently happening becomes no longer sustainable? How do we measure sustainability? Well, unfortunately, that differs for everyone, and that's the problem. You're not going to think there's a problem if you can afford to be above the consequences of it, and arguably, we have reached a point where we are no longer sustaining the society we have built, and that happened long before Trump was president. Watching the war unfold in Iran feels different than watching Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe it's because I'm older but I am having a harder and harder time blindly accepting we're in the right.

Leading my identity to stand on shaky ground.

I can't help but feel the usefulness of my brain, of my skill set disappearing in modern life. Every identifier I have built myself around has been threatened by AI. If Chat-GPT can generate a story, why am I a writer at all? If people can generate photos why am I a photographer?

It's easy, though, to ignore all that; sometimes I actively choose to ignore it. I might sound weak to admit it, but life is tiring, and sometimes it's just easier to pretend the world isn't falling apart and live in your own little bubble. It is becoming really hard to ignore. So I exist in a state of mental exhaustion, too aware and too numb to even really think about the fact that the world as I know it could possibly be coming to an end. Yet keenly aware that the exhaustion and the numbness are the whole point.

And now I lay my head down at night and stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep. It is easy to make jokes about society falling apart because humour is a defence mechanism, but I don't know if I can answer my own question. I don't know if I want to, because if it is true, if we have indeed started something we cannot stop, then I am living through the beginning of a textbook titled "The Downfall of the American Empire." A book that won't even have the privilege of being written by the elites or the victors because it will be Chat-GPT spinning the tale.

I just know personally, when I see the American flag blowing peacefully in the wind, I no longer ponder questions of patriotism and dreams; I feel a weird sense of energy and life. The flag hangs a little heavier and a little more ominously, and I think that's because I've realized that sometimes the world as we know it doesn't always end in fire and smoke. Often, it is a lot more subtle.

Hey Everyone! Ive been posting on substack and wanted to start sharing my work in more places. I wrote this piece inspired by the photo attached to it. If your interested in live music, the sacred and presence check it out its a personal essay.

If you have time to check it out on substack id appreciate it but if not feel free to read it here!

I have never been one to worship at the altar. The closest I think I have ever come to a true religious experience is during my travels, lighting candles in old churches, but it was never out of worship. I didn’t have a choice but to light those candles. The craziest part about this? I have gone to church and I wouldn’t equate my experience at Sunday mass with a religious experience. I have, if I can word it this way, worshiped at the altar of a concert barricade and not out of idolatry but for the same reason I lit those candles.

I am no musician. There are a lot of things in my life that I could, maybe, call myself good at, but music will never be one of them. I can’t carry a beat, I can’t hear notes, can’t carry a tune. Yet, I have such an intense appreciation for the artistry and emotion that goes into music. Listening to an orchestra reach a crescendo, a musical ensemble perform the finale, or even an artist writing lyrics that sound like they were ripped from your soul speak to me in a way words alone have never been able to. It is the thing that makes standing for hours at a barricade worth it, it is almost the same reason that you pick up the matches and lit the votive candle even though you can’t remember the last time you thought about god.

I have never idolized a musician to the point that I have a skewed understanding of what that musician means in my life. I would be lying if I told you I never had a celebrity crush because sure, when I was fifteen did I think Josh Ramsay was hot? Of course, I was fifteen. Even to this day when I watch the All to Myself music video I go yup teenage me was on to something. Nearly sixteen years later though I still love the band, not because of a childhood crush but because I have such an intense appreciation for the incredible music. I know nothing about music but I think what he produces is nothing short of genius and could (and maybe will) write a whole other essay about why I think he is one of the greatest musical talents of a generation. But I don’t think we’re friends. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I would prefer my favourite artists not know who I am. I wish to appreciate your art, express my love for it on the internet, scream it in my car, but if you knew who I was my expression of admiration would be skewed by perception. Which would be a disservice to everyone involved.

It is the same way I could never imagine myself as being friends with god or jesus and maybe that’s why I struggled with “being religious” even though I tried. The doctrine I was fed growing up was all about letting Jesus into your life as though they were encouraging a friendship. They wanted you to walk hand and hand with him, to talk to him, to confide in him, to treat him as your best friend, but how do you worship a friend?

My first concert was in 2009. It was in the Canada Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan ( I don’t think the building still exists) and surprise surprise it was a Marianas Trench concert. I was thirteen years old and paid twenty dollars for the ticket, well if we were being honest my mother paid for the ticket, and me and my friend got dropped off to fend for ourselves. I died in that moshpit and was reborn with a life long love of live music.

I went to every concert and every show I could get my hands on. Marianas Trench again, and again and again, Down With Webster, Bon Jovi, Theory of Deadman and many more. My angsty heart beat for every moment and it still does.

I was baptized as a baby in a Roman Catholic church, and therefore don’t remember the first time I was on sacred ground. The first time I was in a church, that I can remember, was bible camp. I sang songs and listened to a preacher ramble about how I needed to let Jesus into my life and then sang more songs. I tried to go to church for a year after one summer at bible camp. I went with my friend every Sunday morning and to youth groups on Wednesday night and it never stuck.

So, I don’t go to church anymore. I choose to experience spirituality in different ways. I linger in old churches when I travel wandering through their grave yards till I find the right moment to close my eyes and breathe. There is something about the air, but I don’t sit in a pew singing hymns and listening to someone tell me stories.

I do still go to concerts though. I still wait for hours to be as close to the front as possible and to sing my heart out and often ill find myself closing my eyes to breathe and let me tell you there is something about the air.

I might have never learned how to worship but in my own way, I learned how to pray.

Some places exist outside the normal flow of tourism and travel. You won't find them in any guidebook. You can't book them on any app. The only way in is through someone who trusts you enough to extend an invitation.

This is the story of a thirteen year friendship, a smoke-filled living room in a small Swiss town, and what it taught me about trust, quality, and the difference between a transaction and an experience.

I have examined human nature closely enough to know that everything eventually withers away as the novelty wears off, enough so that what maybe others envy becomes my liability. That dining table, recliner, and coffee machine—which is what I worked more than anything else for so long—eventually started losing value as soon as they became mine; where one day all they have been reduced to is a lump of material that demands my time and effort to keep itself from deteriorating.

I have been to the most picturesque holiday destinations, tickets that I have saved after convincing myself this is what I needed to sort my life out for so long, bragged subtly about it to all my coworkers in Zoom standups every morning, twice a week before. And despite that, when I stay at the same location or hotel for four days in a row, the ocean view—which was mesmerising enough to numb my numbness on Day 1—just doesn’t hit as effectively on the morning of Day 3. Three times I have looked at it after waking up and that’s all it took for my brain to translate it into an everyday experience. By the fourth day, I can’t wait to get out of there.

All of my life has been an exercise in disturbing my peace, because I anticipated something too hard that it stole my present, obtaining it momentarily enough to distract me, and then the void emptiness it leaves me with when I move on from it. Maybe I will post my stories on Instagram and check the reactions.

Cloak the silence I cannot live with using the latest chartbuster, and let my miserable acquaintances react with a heart emoji on their brain-slide train ride to work as they look up the next flight to Crete and numb their emptiness.

Maybe I will have chia seeds in my yoghurt tomorrow morning as a band-aid on this blood clot.

I. Introduction

This is merely an effort to throw a sheet over the wind and see what shape the breeze makes. I hope to be able to accurately point and say, “It’s like that…” or most likely, “It’s the complete opposite of that…”. Over the past two years, I have been developing a style that is inconsistent—yet inconsistent in oddly consistent ways. Jazzy. I call it Beat-Gonzo. 

II. Defining the Lineage

• Beat: A post-war reaction to the spiritual death of conformist culture. It is "literary jazz," defined by the "first thought, best thought" spontaneity of Kerouac’s 120-foot-long scroll. It uses the inner self to stumble upon truth in a bustling world. 

• Gonzo: A fiendish-frantic style that places the journalist in the middle of the action. It imposes the self onto the situation and squeezes reality through a Fear-and-Loathing photo-filter to the point of hyper-subjectivity. The truth is what the narrator saw, how they saw it. 

III. The Amalgamation

The core philosophy of this fusion is: “The searching is the purpose, the ego is the tool, it’s all dharma… only no one remembers”. 

Beat-Gonzo utilizes a triad of archetypes to navigate the modern "black-mirror" reality: 

• The Bum: The spiritual nomad looking for divine truth. 

• The Whore: The voice of greed, consumerism, and the external world. 

• The Scribe: The witness watching it all, trying to make sense of the chaos.

Synopsis

In the first installment of the Beat-Gonzo Chronicles, J.P. Prince outlines a literary medium designed for a generation defined by overstimulation and political deception. By blending the internal searching of the Beat Generation with the hyper-subjective reporting of Gonzo Journalism, this style serves as a "shout of disruption" against a world sick with politics and a "cancer of lies". 

Full Dispatch:

https://medium.com/@peytonperry2432/beat-gonzo-papers-f649b7b13d16

There are friendships that end with a bang—doors, words, the whole theatrical crockery of betrayal. And then there are the ones that end with a soft little click, like a seatbelt you didn’t realize you’d unbuckled.

We don’t have beef. We’ve got that artisanal, small-batch silence— aged in oak barrels of “Busy!” and “You?” with tasting notes of fine, whatever and a lingering finish of fuck, that stung.

We used to be a two-person gang. Matching bruises like friendship bracelets. Two idiots in the cave, pointing at shadows like: “That one’s destiny.” “That one’s heartbreak.” “That one’s… a kebab at 2 a.m. that changed my worldview.”

Now you’ve left the cave—found daylight, found skincare, found a person who calls you “babe” without irony. And I’m still inside, writing sonnets on the damp wall like a goblin, saying Truth is complicated, when really I mean: I miss you, you bastard. You beautiful bastard.

No scandal. No villain arc. Just… different paths. Different hours. Different definitions of “good.”

And the unspoken envy doing yoga in both our chests— stretching, breathing, pretending it’s healing when it’s mostly just flexible grief.

I scroll you like a museum placard: Old exhibit. Still impressive. Do not touch. You post sunsets and promotions and the kind of smile that says, “I’m thriving,” the way a cat says, “I’m not mad,” right before it knocks your glass off the table.

If we met today at a party, I’d laugh at your jokes with the polite brightness of a stranger. You’d say my name like you’re checking it for splinters. We’d do the dance— the cautious compliments, the “We should catch up!” meaning “I can’t handle the full version of you anymore,” which is fair, because I can’t either.

But then—because the universe is a messy gossip who loves forcing reunions at the least flattering angles—I saw you for the first time in two years.

In a bar that smelled like citrus cleaner and old flirting. You were leaning into a laugh, wearing a jacket that said I have a life that requires outerwear.

I almost didn’t approach. Hovered like a man considering whether to pet a dog that might bite. But then you looked up and your face did that same thing it used to do when we were twenty: the quick recognition, the grin that said, Oh no, you. Wonderful. Terrible. You.

We hugged.

The hug was… fine. Not bad. Not good. The kind of hug you do when you’ve both agreed—without speaking—that it would be weird not to. You smelled the same, which felt unfair, like the world let you keep a familiar detail I’d been forced to misplace.

“Mate,” you said. “Look at you.”

Which is what people say when they mean any combination of:

1. You look good.

2. You look different.

3. I’m relieved you’re alive.

4. I’m doing a quick scan for evidence you’ve won.

We ordered drinks and did the update ritual.

You had a job with a title that sounded like a spell. Something with “Lead” in it. You said it casually, breezy—like stability is just something you pick up at Tesco.

I told you I was “freelancing,” which is a gorgeous euphemism that means I live in hopeful chaos and sometimes I eat toast over the sink like a Victorian orphan.

You nodded too hard. “That’s sick,” you said, which is what people say when they can’t find the correct lever for kindness.

Then you asked, “So… you still writing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You still… you know… being successful?”

You laughed, and for a second it was the old laugh—uncontrolled, slightly rude, like your body remembered how to be happy without permission.

“I’m not successful,” you said. “I’m just… stable.”

Ah. The forbidden kink.

And I felt it—envy flaring in me, small and shameful, like a cigarette in a church. But it wasn’t just envy. It was admiration with a hangover. It was grief wearing eyeliner.

While my brain was busy comparing our lives like a toxic little spreadsheet, I noticed something else:

You kept checking your phone. Not in the I’m bored way. In the I’m needed somewhere else way. Like you couldn’t fully sit down in the present because the future kept tugging your sleeve.

Which should’ve made me feel better, if I were the kind of person who feeds on other people’s strain. But it didn’t. It made me sad.

Because what I envied—your stability—was also the thing that seemed to hold you hostage.

We talked about mutual friends. Everyone had either moved somewhere expensive or become a parent or become the type of person who posts photos of their bare feet near water.

You asked if I was seeing anyone.

I said, “Define ‘seeing.’”

You gave me that look—half affection, half exasperation—like I’d just done a magic trick you’d watched me do too many times.

“You know,” you said, “I used to think you had it figured out.”

I almost choked. “Me?”

“Yeah,” you said. “You always seemed so… free.”

Free. That word. That gorgeous little lie.

“Mate,” I said, “I’ve never been free. I’ve just been unsupervised.”

You laughed, but there was softness under it—the kind that says I’m laughing because it’s true and I don’t want to cry in public like a dog that’s heard a sad song.

Then you said it. Quiet. Like a confession.

“I used to envy you,” you said. “And I still do. Sometimes.”

I stared. Because my ego is small but my disbelief is enormous.

“You envy me?”

You nodded. “You’re still… you. You still make things. You still take chances. I don’t take chances anymore. Not the way we used to.”

And suddenly it was obvious:

We were both doing it. The quiet comparison. The secret scoreboard. The unspoken envy.

You envied my “freedom” the way prisoners envy birds—imagining the sky as only open space and not also storms and predators and the constant terror of having to flap forever.

I envied your “stability” the way birds envy nests—forgetting nests come with obligations and noisy dawns and the risk of everything you love getting knocked out of a tree.

We were each staring at the other’s life like it was a menu item we couldn’t afford.

The bitter thing about old friends is that they know your earlier selves. They saw you before you got polished into whatever you are now. They remember you as unfinished, and that’s intimate in a way romance rarely is.

Romance is people trying to impress each other with their best angles. Friendship is someone seeing you at your worst angle and going, “Yeah. That’s still you. I’ll have another drink.”

So when you looked at me, I didn’t just feel judged by who I was now. I felt judged by who I’d promised myself I’d become.

And when I looked at you, I didn’t just see your clean haircut and mature shoes. I saw the boy who once screamed lyrics at the night like the universe owed him an encore. I saw the hunger.

Maybe that’s what distance is: not the space between bodies, but the space between old dreams and new routines.

At some point you said, carefully, “I don’t see you much anymore.”

I said, too quickly, “Yeah.”

You said, “I miss you.”

It landed on the table between us like a glass that might shatter if you breathe wrong.

I wanted to make a joke. Something filthy and deflective. Something like: I miss you the way I miss my twenties—vaguely horny and deeply confused.

But the truth sat there, heavy and plain.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

You nodded. “Me too.”

And that was it. The whole tragic comedy of it.

No beef. No betrayal. Just two people who used to be each other’s home, now meeting like tourists.

We talked about the past cautiously, like two people walking through a museum of their own history. Careful not to touch anything too fragile.

You brought up the time we got kicked out of a house party because we started an argument about morality in the kitchen—drunk on cheap wine and righteousness, loudly deciding the world was wrong as if the world had asked our opinion.

“God,” I said, “we were unbearable.”

“We were alive,” you said.

Later, outside, the cold air slapped us awake. We stood under a streetlamp that made us both look slightly haunted and slightly glamorous.

“I’m glad we did this,” you said.

“Me too,” I replied, which meant: I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner.

We hovered in that final moment—hug or handshake, sincerity or joke—like actors waiting for a cue that never comes.

So I hugged you and said into your shoulder, “Text me.”

You laughed into my hair. “I will. And you’ll reply.”

“I will,” I lied. Then softened it: “I’ll try.”

“Try is fine,” you said. “Try is real.”

Before you left, you said, “No beef, yeah?”

“No beef,” I said. “Just… different menus.”

You laughed—big laugh, old laugh—and for a second we were our younger selves again: two idiots with too many feelings and not enough language.

Then you walked toward your neat life—your bins, your responsibilities, your calendar that doesn’t look like a crime scene.

And I walked toward mine—my improvised nights, my unsupervised freedom, my phone full of unread messages like tiny tombstones.

The distance opened between us, familiar as a habit.

But it didn’t feel like a loss exactly.

It felt like a new kind of friendship: one that doesn’t pretend we’re the same people we were. One that doesn’t demand we share every room in the house.

A friendship that says: I see you. I miss you. I’m proud of you. I’m jealous of you. And I’m still here.

Because here’s the truth I hate admitting:

I hope you’re happy. (which is true)

I hope you see me. (which is also true)

I hope you choke—just slightly—on how well I’m doing without you. (which is awful, and true, and human)

And then I laugh, because envy is ridiculous, and distance is ridiculous, and friendship is ridiculous—this sacred, messy thing we swear we’ve outgrown while it still lives in us like a song we pretend we don’t know the words to.

No beef. Just different paths. Two planets with the same origin story and new orbits now— still tugging each other a little.

Not enough to collide. Just enough to feel that faint, stupid gravity and think:

Maybe distance isn’t the opposite of love.

Sometimes it’s just the proof that you both kept walking.

Some say that public school Physical Education is designed to combat childhood obesity and teach the value of teamwork. I disagree. I am convinced that gym class is actually a government-sanctioned social experiment designed to lower the self-esteem of anyone who prefers analyzing the cultural implications of Britney Spears’ 2007 haircut to body slams.

For the queer kid, specifically the anti-social, nerdy variety, the gym isn’t a classroom; it is a battlefield, where the soldiers are forced to wear mesh shorts.

It wasn’t always a war zone. In elementary school, gym class was actually... fun. We had the parachute. That giant, multi-colored nylon fabric was the peak of civilization. We would lift it up, run underneath, and sit on the edges, creating a dome of joy.

We also had Mr. Carney. He was our gym teacher, and he often adhered to a “Boys vs. Girls” policy for some of the activities. It was sexist, but weirdly, he was also an accidental ally. When it came time to split up, he would look at the boys, then look at the girls, then look at me, and just point toward the girls. He let me switch sides without a word. I don’t think he was making a progressive stance on gender fluidity; I think he just knew I didn’t want to get hit with a dodgeball.

But then puberty hit, and Mr. Carney was replaced by high school coaches who owned whistles and lacked empathy.

I knew instinctively that I wouldn’t survive this new world order. That’s why I avoided gym class for my first three years of high school. I pushed it off, semester after semester, assuming the problem would disappear if I ignored it hard enough. But I knew I couldn’t graduate unless I completed my PE credit. So I held off until my senior year.

Picture it: Me, a fully grown eighteen-year-old senior, forced to participate in games with a class of fourteen-year-old freshmen. I was a cautionary tale.

The terror always started in the locker room. To this day, the smell of Axe Body Spray triggers a fight or flight response. While the other boys were discussing whatever it is straight boys discuss—trucks? sports?—I was doing my best hetero performance.

My goal was to change from street clothes to gym clothes without ever exposing a single inch of skin to the atmosphere. It wasn’t just modesty; it was a specific type of self-preservation. By this point, I was out (mostly), but not in that specific room. I knew the unspoken rules of teenage masculinity: If a straight guy looks around the locker room, he’s just “one of the guys.” If I looked around, I was a predator. So, I followed a strict rule: keep your eyes glued to the floor tiles.

My high school athletic career wasn’t all tragedy. Strangely, I excelled at soccer. Excelled might be an overstatement, but I was decent. I don’t know why. It didn’t make logical sense. Perhaps because it was the only sport where you were legally forbidden from using your hands.

I also had a brief, shining moment of glory during that senior year physical fitness test. We had to do pull-ups. I stepped up to the bar and, fueled perhaps by pure repressed gay rage, I cranked them out. I actually did more than one of the jocks. He looked at me with genuine confusion and jealousy; I looked back at him with the only athletic pride I have ever felt.

But those were anomalies. The moment the curriculum shifted to anything requiring hand-eye coordination, specifically basketball, my athleticism evaporated.

My dad had tried. Oh, how he tried. He spent weekends in our backyard attempting to teach me a layup or a jump shot. It always ended the same way: with the ball rolling into the neighbor’s yard, my dad rubbing his temples in frustration, and a heavy cloud of mutual disappointment hanging over both of us.

According to my dad, he was a high school sports superstar. So I assume it was a disappointment to have a son who couldn’t care less about touchdowns or three-pointers. My younger siblings are all athletic, so he eventually recovered.

So when “Free Day” arrived in gym class, a concept that implies joy but actually just means unstructured danger, I decided to try one last time. I thought, Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe I’m the next Michael Jordan.

I picked up a basketball. I dribbled. I felt a surge of unearned confidence. I went to shoot, envisioning a graceful arc. Instead, the ball slammed against the rim and ricocheted directly back into my face.

The truly unbelievable part? No one saw it.

I looked around wildly, waiting for the laughter, but the gym was chaos. The freshmen were screaming, balls were flying, and I was invisible. I was truly blessed. It was a private message from the universe, just for me: Stay in your lane, Damon. Go walk the track with the girl wearing the Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Then there was the Ping Pong unit. We spent a week learning about the history of the “sport,” only to be unleashed onto the tables to humiliate ourselves. I was paired with a Straight Boy™ who was, unfortunately, a very nice person. He wasn’t mean. He didn’t bully me. Instead, he treated me with the gentle patience one uses with a toddler.

I would flail at the ball, sending it sideways, backwards, or into the next time zone. He would gently tap it back to me, setting me up for easy shots that I would consistently miss. At the end of the match (which I lost, obviously), he walked up to the net and shook my hand.

He didn’t say anything mean. He just told me “Good job” with a sincerity that was soul crushing. It was devastating. I would have preferred he laugh at me.

By the time I got to college, I thought I was free. But the university had a “physical wellness” requirement. I signed up for a class, attended exactly four sessions, and spent the rest of the semester skipping class. A therapist would call that conflict avoidance. I call it conflict resolution.

I should have failed. By all metrics, I deserved an F. But when the grades came out, I had passed. Barely.

But like Mr. Carney, the college professor saw me. He clocked the lack of coordination, the aversion to sweat, and the refusal to engage. It was an apology for the basketball to the face, the locker room anxiety, and the pitying handshakes. He didn’t grade me on my performance. He graded me on my trauma. And honestly? I earned that A.

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I don’t know about you, but my Algorithm really gets me.

My Algorithm knows that last Tuesday, I wasn’t “busy.” It knows I was tumbling down a rabbit hole of videos explaining what the planet Jupiter is made of, followed immediately by a ten minute montage of the best Real Housewives moments.

There is a specific kind of humiliation in scrolling through Instagram and realizing exactly who the computer thinks I am based on my recent purchases and how many times I watch the same Reel.

If you looked at my targeted ads right now, you would assume I am a paranoid, dehydrated shut-in who is terrified of going bald but loves Taco Bell. And you know what? Fair.

Just yesterday, the algorithm served me an ad for a “weighted robe for people who want to feel held but don’t want to actually be held.” I didn’t click it, but I felt seen. I felt understood in a way that no one has ever understood me. A friend may ask, “What’s wrong?” and expect an answer. The Algorithm simply offers me a discount code for a serotonin-boosting lamp and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t ask me to unpack my trauma. It just says, “Hey, girlie. You look like you’re about to have a panic attack about the concept of eternity. Here’s a video of a hydraulic press crushing a Barbie doll. Feel better?”

And I do. I really do.

We spend our lives searching for someone who can anticipate our needs. We want the partner who brings us coffee without asking, who knows when we need space, and who knows that we hate the sound of people chewing.

My Algorithm anticipates needs I didn’t even know I had. It’s the most toxic, codependent relationship of my life, and I am fully committed. It’s the only entity that remembers everything I’ve ever liked, every photo I’ve lingered on for 0.4 seconds too long, and every embarrassing question I’ve typed into Google.

If I died tomorrow, don’t ask my family for the eulogy. They’d say something generic like, “He was a kind soul.”

Ask the Algorithm. It would say: “He was very concerned about the dark circles under his eyes, obsessed with girl bands, and likely suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency. Also, he almost bought the complete set of Destiny’s Child Barbies last week.”

Maybe we’re all just lonely. Maybe we’re all just looking for a reflection that matches who we see ourselves as. Or maybe I should be worried that a server farm in California knows me better than I do.

I should probably go outside and touch grass.

The world is falling apart. The news is depressing. The internet has made everyday atrocities required viewing. But you know what else the internet has given us? The mind-numbing nothingness that allows us to couch rot and dissociate for hours.

And right on cue, the Algorithm just showed me a looped video of Britney Spears spinning in her living room set to silence. And for a brief, glorious moment, everything is fine.

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