The next day when Albert came home from work he took a single edible. His calligraphy workbooks had not yet arrived (nor did he want them anymore), and so he opened his laptop and looked at the YouTube homepage, hoping for something.
The videos were:
Giving Somalian pirates $30 MILLION if they beat me in Fortnite.
REDNECK EATS PICKLED PIGS FEET
How to be alone...
He opened 12 videos, all in different tabs, and began intuitively clicking through recommended and related videos as he did with pornography.
The video that caught Albert’s eye that day was a vlog titled “I have no friends.” It seemed to be one of many such videos constituting the YouTube loneliness niche, aka LonelyTube. This particular video had 3 million views.
“I’m a 34 year old man,” the man cried, “and I’ve never had a single-- a single friend. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. I have tried. I’ve put myself out there. I’ve gone to meetups, clubs, pickle ball games. But nothing, nothing.”
Albert full-screened the video and began absent-mindedly fondling himself.
“People are polite for a while and then they just fade away. No one wants to come close to me. And when I got really desperate, I even started asking them-- oh god it’s pathetic-- I started asking them, is there something wrong with me? You don’t have to text me back but please just tell me what’s wrong with me. Please so I can fix it and make one fucking friend man,” the man cried harder.
It was only when the man began silently crying in front of his webcam did Albert, now fully erect, realize what he was doing. He removed his hand from his crotch with disgust, and then a wave of sadness overtook him.
“What the fuck is wrong with me, man? Will you tell me? Will you tell me in the comments section below?”
As the man cried Albert felt a swell in his throat and began to cry with him. It was the second time in his adult life that he cried, the first being with his mom two weeks ago. Albert was sobbing then. He closed the laptop and laid on his couch in the dark, contemplating the video, crying in bursts.
The next morning, Albert woke up, thinking of the man again.
On a whim, he decided to pray.
“God, please give that man a friend.”
This was the second time in his life he prayed.
And as he prayed, he felt a slight peace come over him, along with the slightest feeling of hope.
“God, please give that man a friend.”
A greater peace came over him and he savored the feeling. Then he went to the bathroom and got ready for work.
As he left his apartment building, and saw the first real woman of the day, Albert did not feel as distressed as he normally did. It was as if the softness of his tears and his compassion for the lonely man had made the world feel a bit softer.
But this feeling didn’t last. After seven sports bras, three groups of intimidating men, and countless honks, Albert was back to feeling frayed, reclusive, agitated, and on-edge.
At work, Albert’s team had began to register his lagging performance. Andy, the team’s project manager, began to hound Albert for his incomplete tickets. But rather than stoically apologize and work harder as Albert normally did, Andy’s advances now filled him with an intense anxiety.
Albert was so agitated he knew he couldn’t finish his work. But if he didn’t finish his work, would he get fired? And if he got fired, how would he find another job? There was no way he could pass another interview. He was doomed.
But along with this fear was an intense indignation he had never felt before. Who the fuck is Andy? What the fuck does he even do? What the fuck is a project manager anyway? All he does is waste other people’s time in useless 30-minute meetings. It’s pure administrative theatre. I’m the one who actually does the work. His job is literally just to nag. He’s a professional nag. “Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet?” Like a child in the backseat of a car. The more he nags the more important he feels. The more he uselessly inserts himself into other people’s workdays the more he can justify his pathetic existence. His only output is making inane timelines about when things will get done. If he died, everyone would be more productive. How does such a useless job exist in a free market economy? Where’s the invisible hand? Jerking off?
Albert began to imagine the giant white hand from Super Smash Bros. making masturbatory movements as ASMR porn sounds played in his ear. He only noticed his eyes were closed when someone tapped his shoulder.
“Hey bro, Albert, right?”
“Yeah, uh, harder, please--” Albert muted his laptop and took out his earbuds. He turned around. An Indian guy had occupied the previously occupied desk to his right. Albert racked his brain. Was there a new hire?
“Hey, yeah.”
“I’m Kirin, I just joined today.” Kirin wore a plum colored hoodie with the hood up and had a big smile on his face. He had thick eyebrows and round, sanguine, shining eyes that were charismatic, but in a somewhat shallow way. With the hoodie, he wore tan jeans and white socks with crocs.
“Oh. Cool. I’m Albert.” Albert spoke flatly and shook Kirin’s hand.
“Sorry bro didn’t mean to interrupt your deep contemplation of your sexual harassment training email.” Albert realized he had left his company-wide sexual harassment training invitation email open on his monitor. Kirin spoke a bit softer, “Is that... is that email just for you... or...?”
“Huh? Oh. No. I don’t think so.”
Kirin stared skeptically for a few seconds, then burst out into laughter. “You’re funny man. Gonna be fun sitting next to you. Anyway how does lunch work with you guys? I’m fucking starving.”
“Oh. I don’t know. We usually all eat separately.”
“Damn that’s depressing. Well, you hungry bro? Wanna get food together?”
“Yeah ok.”
Kirin waved down the manager, Ashutosh, who wore noise cancelling headphones. Ashutosh took them off. “Hey boss-man you wanna get lunch with us?”
“Yeah!” Ashutosh smiled sincerely. “Give me one minute.”
Kirin waved down Albert’s other teammates: Philip, Andy, and Jason. “Lunch? Lunch? Lunch?” They slowly got up, one by one, and idled in the hallway, unsure of how to interact, until Kirin led the way to the cafeteria. Albert trailed behind the group as Kirin gregariously engaged the whole team.
“Bro so you guys are using Javascript huh? That’s cool I guess. I’ve heard bad things though. I’m a fan of Python myself. I like to keep it minimal, you know? What do you think Philip?”
In the Pagii cafeteria, the lagging Albert finished filling his plate and joined the rest of his team in the midst of some restaurant related conversation.
Jason: “What’s that sushi place called again Andy?”
Andy: “Sushirito!”
Jason: “Yes, Sushirito, apparently it’s BURRITO SIZED SUSHI! Crazy, right? We should all go some time.”
Andy: “You know, my wife makes the best sushi. You’ve got to use the sushi rice from Whole Foods. Exceptional. Just exceptional. We’ve tried the one from Trader Joe’s, but there’s not enough starch in it. You want it to be a little mushy, right?”
Jason: “Mhm.”
Andy: ‘So yeah-- Whole Foods sushi rice, and then we go get the salmon from this PHENOMENAL fish market near our house. You can really get all kinds of fish there and it’s super fresh just like really fresh fish you know--’
Jason: “Mmm.”
Kirin had already checked out of the conversation at this point and was scanning the room for better opportunities. He turned a 40-something woman next to him, not on the team, wearing a muted blouse and pencil skirt-- a style rare for Pagii-- and struck up a conversation.
Andy: “-- and finally you spread in A TEENSY TINY BIT of, ok, don’t hate me, promise not to hate me, but this is the SECRET INGREDIENT, I’m TELLING YOU, it works.” Andy looked around grinning, “WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...”
In that moment, Albert felt immense disdain for Andy and his brutal monopoly of the conversation. Not that Albert would have spoken either way. But maybe someone else would have spoken, and said something more dopaminergic. Maybe Kirin, for example, who seemed far more charismatic than anyone else on the team. Desperate for some soothing stimuli, Albert used his peripheral vision to form an impression of the woman Kirin was talking to. He locked on and tried to fantasize, but couldn’t get into it.
Andy: “it’s... NUTELLA! Nutella. ‘Ahh! Andy, you’re crazy! Ahh! Nutella!?’ Hahaha. I know I know I know I know I know I know, you HATE me. BUT, you HAVE to try it. You’ll see the light!” Jason paused to eat tater tots.
Albert thought, that sounds disgusting. And Jason, having checked out a few sentences prior, looked down at his food while making polite but despondent noises. ‘Mmm. Hmm Hmm.’ Then the work thoughts starting rolling in, and Jason started speed eating silently so he could get back to it.
Kirin stayed at the cafeteria, seeming to be deep in conversation with the office-chic woman.