Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - Wednesday One-Shot: Being Young and on the Internet Sucks

Starting point is 00:00:00 AT&T Fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a Gagillionaire? Yeah, I have AT&T Fiber. The straightforward pricing has inspired me to be more straightforward.

Starting point is 00:00:16 Me too. Ugh, this wine. I'll fetch you a better one. Straight forward is better. No equipment fees, no data caps, no price increase at 12 months. Live like a Gagillionaire with AT&T Fiber. Limited availability in select areas, visit at ATT.com slash Hypergate for details. Welcome to Wednesday One Shots, a new series where we share a bonus story to help you get

Starting point is 00:00:49 through that midweek slump. This is a story from a listener that goes by the name of mystical noodles. I have two stories. The first one is very brief, but both involve me being young and spending time on the internet. This happened when I was 11. My mom was studying to get her bachelor's degree in social work, so she spent a lot of time on campus. She was also going through divorce at this time, so I spent a lot of time on her campus

Starting point is 00:01:18 as well. I was in the computer lab playing runescape all the time. Other people who spent time at the computer lab kind of knew me due to me being there so frequently. Some people even babysat me and looked after me while I was there since they knew my mom. There was this really big guy who would come to the computer lab and would always intentionally sit right next to me or at least near me. He had a strange odor. He always smelled sour. He watched very nasty videos, and he would get really close to the screen. I assumed that he was legally blind or something.

Starting point is 00:02:01 One day the computer lab was closed since it was a holiday. It was MLK Day. I didn't know the computer lab was going to be closed. All of the PCs on campus were down during that holiday weekend since the system was being updated. I didn't realize this was going on at the time, so I tried to log into a PC, but I was unable. I turned around, and the really big guy was breathing very heavily behind me. I tried to tell him that the computer lab was closed. He started approaching me

Starting point is 00:02:33 very quickly, and his breathing got louder and heavier. I ran around the desks where the PCs were, and he tried to grab me. When he tried to grab me, he let out this noticeable grunt, and then he started yelling at me. I was still trying to run away, but I looked behind me, and he was now chasing me. Luckily, I outran him and made my way back home. Shortly after that, this big, creepy guy was on the news because he was facing charges of assaulting a girl on campus. My second story happened when I was around the same age. 11. I met this guy on Yahoo Messenger. I can't remember how I met him exactly, but he was a goth kid and we both ended up playing Roonscape. For the purposes of of this story we'll call him Greg.

Starting point is 00:03:25 Greg was everything I ever wanted to be at the time. He seemed so cool and collected. If he ever happened to go off, it was when somebody was messing with his friends. He carried a switchblade, which I thought was very cool. I was striving to be goth just like him, but I wasn't allowed to have switchblade, of course. One day Greg disappeared suddenly. I couldn't find him anywhere. He wasn't on runescape or Yahoo messenger or anything. He was just gone. Sometime had passed, about six years. I was 17 years old and Facebook was in its early stages,

Starting point is 00:04:04 so it was easy to find and connect with people. Naturally, I wanted to see if I could find Greg again. We linked back up, and I told him how much I missed him. I told him that I was in high school, and he was happy to hear from me since he remembered me. He gave me some life updates as well. He had a girlfriend who will call Amber. He let me know how happy they were together. Now one thing I need to mention, which is important for the next part of the story, is that he used to say very homophobic things from time to time, but since I was so young, I just listened to what he was saying without reacting much. He then revealed to me that he was, by curious. I was shocked, because I remembered all of the homophobic things that he would say. This is where things got weird, though.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Greg started talking about his encounters with his girlfriend Amber's best friend and her boyfriend. He launched into uncomfortable details about these experiences. I was quietly disturbed being me socially awkward teen I was at the time. Things got increasingly intense. He would tell me graphic details about his sex life and try to peer pressure me and watching his videos nearly every single day. I didn't want to seem rude, so I would accept receiving video attachments, but I would never watch them. Then he started going into graphic details of the horrible things he and Amber fantasized

Starting point is 00:05:33 about doing to me. He sent me a barrage of messages talking about the clothes that he wanted me to wear, calling me his little pet. He even talked about soundproofing his room, just for me. Whenever I would ignore him, he would threaten to harm himself. This started to affect my mental health. I was jumpy at school, even though he was living in Canada and I was in the US. On top of being jumpy, I also wasn't eating or sleeping.

Starting point is 00:06:07 It finally became too much, so I caved and told the teacher what was happening. She told me to tell him how uncomfortable he's been making me feel and to stop messaging me so I can focus on school. I followed her advice and I told him he was making me uncomfortable. He went on this huge tangent about how I'm

Starting point is 00:06:25 nothing but his toy. He said he knew where I lived and would come claim what was his. I was terrified. Then out of the blue, the message is stopped and he unfriended me. The nightmare was finally over. It took months of avoiding social media and processing the whole situation to get over what had happened. I had never been so scared in my life. So, Greg and Amber, with your weird soundproof room, let's never meet. Oh, into the weirdo from the computer lab, let's also never meet. Thank you all for listening and thank you Mystical Moodles for sharing those stories. I do apologize for missing last week's one shot episode.

Starting point is 00:07:10 I was very sick and even if I did try to put it out, it would have sounded terrible. So thank you for your patience. Next week we'll be sharing the extended Patreon version of Let's Not Meet for free. I'm often asked by listeners what these bonus Patreon stories are like, and I figured that it would be best to simply share it with everybody. So look forward to your extra long episode of Let's Not Meet next week, and a preview of what it's like to be a patron. I'll see you guys then.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Stay safe. you 18T fiber presents a straightforward moment. Your wine? Thanks. I'll pretend I know what I'm doing before saying it's good. And I'll pretend I don't know you're pretending. Are you a gigillionaire? Yeah, I have 18T fiber. it's good. Availability in select areas.

Starting point is 00:08:39 Visit atct.com slash hypergig for details.

Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - Wednesday One-Shot: Being Young and on the Internet Sucks

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.