By the time I realized what I was doing, I had already been doing it for years. It was the stories that pulled me in. Long, meandering threads about a loving brother who spent his life raising his younger sister, teaching her to obsess over the Knicks, only to lose her to cancer in her 20s. An anonymous postcard from a woman who thanked her former teacher for giving a speech that saved her life when she was in high school. A conversation about the age at which a person may or may not own ramekins, and how long a chocolate lava cake might stave off a breakup. (Turns out, it’s two and a half weeks.) Yearslong reports from a woman who had lost 251 pounds and was living her best life, when skin-removal surgery left one of her nipples hanging in the balance.

I read them regularly, like teeny tiny true soap operas, meted out in the dribs and drabs of social posts. Even when my own life was busy and overwhelming, I was eager for updates. Comments sections are notorious cesspools, but here, in these uncommonly wholesome online spaces — weight-loss forums, cooking sites, accounts that shared anonymous secrets — they were often joyful and encouraging. Folks openly rooted for one another — and for the nipple. They commended the brother who gave his sister a better life. They said it’s never too late to tell teachers what they meant to you. That it’s probably illegal to own ramekins before age 25, and even when you do have them, you might lose them to divorce or to the uncareful wiles of teenage children.

In these corners of the internet, I found genuine encouragement, even in the trickiest times: during Covid lockdowns, protests over the death of George Floyd, signs of a flailing economy. When the world felt as if it was falling apart, on both historical and personal scales, I came back to these forums over and over, even if I opted to not post anything on them myself.

Even when I have something nice to say, I’d rather not say anything at all.