Anyone from New York?

It had been a couple of years since I’d seen Carlos, an old acquaintance from my days of daze.

“Here, use my screen name, someone will reply!” Carlos insisted, confident that his idea was the solution to my solitude. I had told him that yes, I’d been looking to meet someone, although not necessarily for romance—more along the lines of companionship.

Not a single reply.

We soon parted after the minor disappointment, Carlos assuring me no one replied because I was online under his screen name. “Next time you come over, we’ll set you up with your own,” he said warmly. I never saw him again.

This was in the early 2000s, when AOL chat rooms were still a thing.

Life went on with its frequent struggles and detours until I had the funds to buy myself a desktop. A used one, refurbished by Per Scholas. After a lifetime in the stupor of addiction, this was among the first significant choices I made for myself.

The desktop turned out fine for my purposes, which were essentially to stare at it after work and figure out how to do things. One evening I remembered Carlos and his much-touted AOL chat rooms, though not his screen name.

I eventually got bold enough to go from lurker to occasional chatter, and while there were a few fun conversations, most people seemed interested in casual encounters.

Many chats later, I’d grown tired of them, mostly for that reason. Things were gradually improving for me. I’d started looking for an apartment, still worked for a well-known nonprofit, and had begun college as an adult student.

My sobriety date came around—no one with whom to share the suffocating July heat. It was still just me in that basement room with the small rectangular window that looked out onto gravel and the feet going in and out of the driveway.

“Let’s take a look at the chat room,” I told myself, looking to lighten the day.

The chat was much as it had been in prior weeks: the regulars, their childish cliques, their conversations peppered with the same old obscenities. Shortly after, I turned the desktop off, in a weird mix of disgust and loneliness. In retrospect, the mix of emotions was more than I could explain even today: I found myself covering my face with both hands, sobbing, asking Spirit for someone for me. The intensity of that moment surprises me to this day.

In late July, I typed: “Anyone from New York?” in a cute blue font, no less. The old refurbished desktop wobbled on the box it had come in. Maybe good things do feel fuller when shared. 

“Hi.”
“I’m in New York.”

After a few pleasantries, I cut to the point.

“Do you have children?”

“Yes, they live with their father and they’re big… is this a problem, sweetie?”

“No. They’re not that small, and they don’t live with you.”

“I have a second question: do you cook?”

“What? I can make you a meat stew that’ll rattle your bones, the best pork chops you ever tasted,” her excitement practically jumped off the screen.

Wouldn’t you know it? We met just a couple of weeks later, and not long after that, she showed up with a tray of the most delicious baked ziti. She brought it to our spot in the nearby park.

That was part fun, part embarrassment, because I lived in a basement room, but it really turned out to be a lovely afternoon. She even let me keep the leftovers. In retrospect, that day, her gesture, us sharing a homemade meal for the first time, right there on a bench in Bronx River Park, was a gem of a moment.

We’ve been together for over twenty years, not only each other’s spouse but each other’s person.

in that basement room, I had asked Spirit for someone for me. I still wonder if that blue-font question into an AOL chat room was only me reaching out or if something had already started reaching back.