NamelessEchos

Reposting a comic i made for r/okbuddybaldur on reddit. This is part 1/3 posts.

Part 2/2

Yes this is a true story. I thought it'd be funny if, for my daily shitpost today, I made a comic out of this insane incident that I like to laugh about with my friends. Because what the fuck was that?!

Anyway, I know some of y'all are probably nosey, so here's the true story:

This actually happened a month ago. I met a girl on a dating app, and we quickly moved our chat to Instagram, and later discord because she used discord more. I had matched with her a week or two prior, we didn't have a lot in common so far, and we'd had like somewhere between 2-5 conversations prior- all of which were surface level chats. She seemed nice though.

Then one day, I said hello. And then the conversation went basically how it went in this comic (with the wording changed, of course). I never met her irl (thank god, I hope I never do). The whole conversation was over discord. Because of course it was discord.

I had no idea how to feel about this confession. I'm neurodivergent, and pretty introverted irl. I'm 20 and I have no dating experience.

Of course, in our conversation, I was trying to be polite, so I was just like "ohh that's horrible! Thanks for telling me!" Because what else am I supposed to say to that?? Then the conversation proceeded like a normal conversation.

But the whole time I was thinking about what she said.

On the one hand, I didn't understand why she would tell me that if the accusations were true and she was guilty. I do not know this person. I had no way of finding out about this, and I have no way of verifying it. So why tell me unless she's being honest and she's innocent?

And I mean, maybe she's neurodivergent and didnt realize that was inappropriate? I mean, I'm neurodivergent and I can tell that's inappropriate, but everyone is different.

And you have to be open in order to make friends, right? If she really did trust me and was being honest and trying to be friends, then wouldn't it suck to be punished for being vulnerable with someone?

And, though in retrospect she really really did not have to tell me that and I didn't really ask, at the time, I thought maybe I had? Like, I initially asked if she wanted to talk about it, and I certainly felt curious. So I thought maybe it came across like I had asked.

On the other hand though, statistically, accusations of sexual assault are usually not false, and I have no way of verifying. She could be a really dangerous person. And now that she's told me that, I literally can't interact with her without wondering if those accusations are true.

We never spoke after that conversation. I didn't want to say hi, and she just never said hi either. I blocked her about two weeks after though. I know some people would have blocked her sooner, and some might have done it immediately. But as I previously mentioned, I'm 20, neurodivergent, and I have no experience. I had never delt with a situation like that before, so I took a few days think about it (off and on, it wasn't like I was constantly thinking about her lol).

I didn't tell anyone at first because I didn't want to worry anybody, and I wanted to handle the situation on my own. But after I think 2 weeks, I talked to mom while off on a walk, and that helped a lot. I won’t get into it because this is already a pretty long post, but she basically explained how, true or not, that person's confession could be a manipulation tactic, which I didn't realize. And she explained how it could indicate that they have what she called a 'victim mentality'. Then I blocked them later that day on all socials (after taking screenshots of that conversation for when i tell this story to friends and need evidence lol).

Honestly it was kind of an eye opening experience. Writing out my thoughts for this funny internet story, it made me realize that even if you're a really intelligent person (which I am), you can still be manipulated in ways you dont realize. It's way easier to be manipulated than you think it is. I can't help but notice how some of my thought processes and reactions mirror those of some people who are abused. Like how I wondered if I did something to cause this bizarre confession, and how I felt nervous to tell my friends and family, and how I worried that if I blocked her for being honest, I'd be the bad guy for punishing her for being vulnerable.

I'm grateful for my mom and my friends though. I think in this situation I probably would have blocked her eventually anyway? Or at least not made friends. But if we did have more in common, there is the possibility that, if I didn't have friends and family I trusted to talk about it with, I could have gotten myself into a bad friendship or even a bad romantic relationship.

they were the best part of the book

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Here are some designs of the book's diverse cast of characters!!! I will do more in the future.

1.) Women in their fifties having the epiphany that capitalism and/or marketing is evil, but like. They don't realize that that's how capitalism and marketing as a whole are designed to work; they think that this is a unique type of evil that Bath & Body Works has invented. They'll be like, "It's sick and twisted that they just keep releasing new products that are inferior quality versions of their old products with a different label and then making them seasonal items so that people feel pressured to buy them before they can really think about it because they're worried they'll miss out!!! This should be illegal!!!" You're telling me, girl. You're gonna be soooooo mad when you find out about. The whole world.

2.) Level 1-2 Hoarders in denial showing off their collections of hundreds of candles and body sprays and lotions and then frothing at the mouth in the comments section when people offer support resources for hoarding and shopping addictions.