When you can’t have any terrible NSOP crushes, it’s time to get creative with a new form of a mystery lover.

To the student I am writing notes for in my 250 person class,

Who are you? When Columbia emailed me asking for notes, I heard you calling for me. Deep, in the darkness of the Zoom ether, I heard your voice, asking for my help, my notes, my charts on the functions of a neuron.

Every week, I dutifully send in compiled notes. Albeit, they are partially pulled from when I took this course as an AP student (but as if Columbia would ever give me credit). I send you the signal that I am here. I used to curse the fates that Columbia is so elitist about AP credit, how was I to know that the Ivy League institution was only doing it to bring us together?  I thrill in the knowledge that you are receiving my notes every week. I hope you see the little messages I leave for you, the hidden dedications to you, that you sense the intrinsic connection I feel between us. 

I hope that I am helping you and providing the aid in this class you need, All I want is for you to be happy, and perhaps that means that unfortunately, we must be apart.

And yet, I search for you.  Every time we are in the same Zoom call, I wonder which of the faces you are. Are you the inquisitive one, who unmutes with the terrible horrible feedback every time? Are you the silent and mysterious face that says nothing? Or perhaps, you are just one of the many dark screens, and will forever keep me wondering, looking out across the stream of the internet abyss, stretching out my arm towards the computer’s blue light, so near and yet so far.

One day, I wish to meet you, to see you in real life. Alas, for now, I must be satisfied that when you and I both look at the computer screen, we see the same cyberspace, with glimmering pixels that are slowly depleting our retinas.

All my love,
Your note-taker

(Who also happens to be failing the class. Oops.) 

Taking notes via Freepik