I am the friend of all, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat,
I loosen myself, pass freely, persuader always of people to give him their sweetest touches,
I want to meet every man, worst man or best man, with the open hand.
Walt WhitmanI have edited this article numerous times to keep my friend's identity as anonymous as possible. I really would not want to unintentionally hurt someone I care dearly about, so please bear with the censorship. Let's get to the story.Back in 2018, I used to spend a lot of time on a particular website: penpalworld.com. It is a website that lets you meet new people online in an old-fashioned pen-pal manner. On the website, users could create profiles with a brief HTML text about themselves and one profile picture, and they could message other users if they so pleased. At the time, you could send only three messages per day if you weren’t a premium member. However, you could email users if they included any contact details in their description sections, which was pretty handy.
That was when I first started using my English and was beginning to learn French. During my summer break, I’d log in to that website every day, wear my ridiculously large headset, put on some music, and meet people from all around the globe from afternoon till dawn because of the time difference between Turkey and the New World. It was a fascinating experience for me to meet people from different countries and backgrounds; I was in eighth grade, after all.
I am still in touch with some fantastic friends from Italy, Iran, Estonia, and Vietnam, especially you, Sara, if you’re reading this by any chance. Additionally, I made it a habit to jot down any new words or phrases I learnt while chatting with native speakers. I would take the time to think through and proofread my emails before replying to messages, which helped me a lot in learning both English and French and played an incredible role in sparking my everlasting interest in various world languages and linguistics.
One day, around Ramadan, I received a message from a particular member of the website from the States: Michelle. (That’s not really her name; I felt obligated to anonymise it since I could not ask for her consent.) Her message was notably formal, composed as though it were a piece of snail mail. It mentioned her interest in meeting me and included a picture of her dog, if my memory is not fooling me. We quickly began exchanging daily emails, which we continued doing for about a month, and I asked for her phone number in the hope of catching up on WhatsApp for convenience’s sake. Much to my surprise, she replied that she had only just got a smartphone and did not use any social media applications.
Once she had set up a WhatsApp account, we started conversing almost daily, and it seemed as though we enjoyed each other’s company – at least I know for a fact that I did. We’d talk about all sorts of things, and I learnt a lot from her. She was a huge Daryl Hall & John Oates fan, liked old music, and was a very intellectual person.
One day, I asked Michelle if she believed in extraterrestrial life (I was bored) and she replied, “Do you mean angels?” I had never thought that anyone might think of angels when asked this question. I replied, “I meant UFOs and stuff, but why angels?” She had previously mentioned that she was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses; however, I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time and overlooked it.
Anyway, she wrote me an in-depth text about angels, and I was fascinated. That was the message that sparked my interest in theology. I spent days researching angels and their significance in many different belief systems, and then read the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an, along with some of the Vedas.
Ever since then, I have been especially interested in new religious movements, particularly those that arose in the US after the Third Great Awakening. I’ve read perhaps an unhealthy amount of William Miller, Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, and even Mary Baker Eddy. I love meeting people who belong to some of these groups and simply listening to them talk about their experiences.
She liked writing a blog, and I was a character in it. She used an alias for me, which, sadly, I can’t remember.
When I started high school as a first grader, I tried sending her a message about how my day had gone, but it wouldn’t send. I tried emailing her, with no success. It was as though she had simply vanished. I attempted to reconnect with her again when I started university, once more as a freshman, but this time I received an email from Gmail stating that the address I was trying to reach was no longer in service. Sadly, I couldn’t log in to the website that had initially brought us together any more. A problem had arisen because I had set an age limit for the people who could view my profile, as there were just too many creeps out there. Now, having surpassed that age limit, I find myself unable to access my own profile. And that’s how we lost contact for good.
Today was a pleasant day without much happening. We recorded an episode for the podcast of our linguistics community, and a friend of mine brought me some food he had cooked. After having a very pleasant meal, I was smoking a cigarette in front of my dormitory at my usual spot, listening to Sheryl Crow’s song “Maybe Angels”. Something about the song reminded me of Michelle for some reason. When I searched for her full name on Google, the only result I could find was a mugshot from a county jail. It has been so long, and because we usually texted without sending pictures or anything, I hardly remember her face. Still, I sure hope that, whatever happened to her, she is doing well.
It’s interesting how small things can change people’s lives to varying degrees. I have no idea whether I’d be as interested in theology or listen to as much Daryl Hall & John Oates as I do now if it weren’t for Michelle. In the end, we are very prone to taking the people we know for granted. Friendships come and go, but we all affect each other in some way, hopefully for the better. I hope that, someday, all my good friends will feel the same way about me.
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