i_hate_myself_so_why_don't_you raze i typed this phrase into a search engine once, more than twenty_years_ago. the internet was different then. it was an unpaved road with strange reeds and wisps of crabgrass jutting out of the cracks of what it hadn't yet become. one of the first things i found when i got a home computer in the twelfth grade was a rickety website dedicated to critiquing trent reznor's facial hair. i think i stumbled into more compelling places when the map of the new world was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. that's how i ended up here. the ugly question came a little later, when i was sitting in my dad's office after quitting a job that made me want to kill myself. it led me to a girl's digital diary. everything she wrote was about longing to find someone who understood her. she only felt alive when she was online. she hoped to make a meaningful connection in a late-night icq conversation. it wasn't romance she was after. just real, bone-deep friendship. the kind that doesn't crack when it gets kicked around. she kept coming up short. i would have tried to tell her something comforting and at least half true, wretched as i was then, but i didn't have any contact information to work with. just some lonely words whispered into the void. 230504 what's it to you? who go blather from