I sit in the living room, having forgotten about my laptop which I'd let fall to the side, contemplating life; or more specifically, my life. My parents are out most of the time, working after a car accident that forced them to take a little more money than they could afford out of the bank. We aren't poor or anything, just a bit in dept. Maybe they still owe the money because whenever they get a raise, they go out and celebrate at a fancy restaurant. It isn't that which bothers me though, I don't really care much about money or them not being here or anything. Actually, I kind of like it because the flat's nice enough, I have a laptop and Wi-Fi, and that's probably all I need in life. On top of that, there's nobody to look over my shoulder while I'm on Tumblr, and nobody preventing me from singing out loud.

I'd gotten bullied for that before I left school, about a month ago. Not specifically singing, but being a drama kid. And not a large extent of it, so I really don't have anything to be complaining about in my life. Most kids get a fair douse. I can't say I should be complaining about the bullies. It was just the usual, "Gay" and stuff. Ouch, I must be so gay, I like to act. I must like men because of it, shame on me, and shame on gays. I'm glad I'm away from that, yeah, but I'm also away from my friends, as cliché as I'm going to sound. Since I'd left high school, they'd all left London, leaving me here to mold. I shouldn't be mad. It's not their fault I'm not doing anything with my life yet. I got good grades, but I'm still being held back, sitting here all day whether it be myself doing the holding or someone or something else, I don't know. A just-turned-18 guy with nothing better to do than watch YouTube videos and go on Tumblr or whatever else. I'm a nerd, I guess, though I like to think I'm more of a 'cool nerd', at least online, but that makes me feel even more pathetic. Apparently a gay nerd at that, I mean what straight guy in his late teens watches boys on the internet and enjoys it?

And that's all it is- all I've done with my life. I've been sitting here for practically a straight month, laughing at stupid puns and listening to music. I'm only 18 and my life is being wasted. I like to blame it on my parents shoving me through education without actually preparing me for the real world. If someone were to write a book on the events happening in my life for the past month, and my plans for the rest of it, it could barely pass half a page. I'm going to die eventually, sure, it's inevitable, and is there even a point to making something out of your life? I'm sure there's got to be. Happiness or something? My history teacher once told me the answer to the universe was to find your purpose, but the universe is so infinitely large, how can something like my life plans bother me so much? My parents are going to want me out of the house sooner or later, and time is going by so fast that before I even finish thinking about this I could be a 40 year old bum, or still living with them.

From what my parents see of me, they think I'm depressed. I'm not exactly sad, nor angry, nor hopeless completely, and I don't see how I could be depressed without either of those being key in my life. I just take joy in what I'm doing right now, sitting like a potato on the internet all day. It's amusing, and it's not like I don't meet people. I don't not have a social life, it's just not in public, in real life. It's with people who understand what it's like to be online. And I'm seen as weird for it. I shut out the rest of the world, that's true, and I know it. I know to be a human being I need to participate in the world and get out there, but when I tell myself this my brain and body don't seem to want to connect, my brain yelling but my body being like no fuck you brain I'm comfortable. I'll say go apply for a part time job. Go to college, but even though I hear the words in my head, my body just stays put and I see a gif of a puppy and re-blog it instead. I want to do this with my life, make friends on the internet, and watch videos and even make them. I could do that. If it wasn't so looked down on, looked at as lazy, or even weird, especially to be talking to people you've never seen face to face. Nobody understands that.

There's one face I've seen and known now for a while, though he hasn't seen mine. Phil Lester's face. Paler than me, northern, paired with black hair sort of cut like mine, and super blue eyes. Eyes worthy of description by comparison to gems, but that would be gay of me. A YouTuber who just so happened to respond to my message about Muse, and has been talking to me since then. But not often enough for my liking, even though I don't want to come across as a crazy fan or anything, which I'm not by the way. For the most part. I just feel like I can relate to him in this small community of YouTube, and, God, would I like to meet him in person.

But, just the same, here I sit, grabbing my laptop and sliding it back onto my lap and staring into its sleeping screen at my face. Is it sad I can't imagine this face I know too well doing something productive? I shake the mouse and my face disappears behind Google Chrome. I type 'AmazingPhil' into the search bar and scroll through old videos that have for so long now distracted me when I have an existential crises.

When the video's finished, I sit and allow myself to think about my life for a second more. I need to do something about it, as much as I don't want to. I e-mail Phil a quick message, leaving my Skype name at the bottom, and shut the lid of my laptop with a wince, pushing it to the side before my brain could protest the action, or even overthink what I'd just sent.

I'm going outside… for once. I've been avoiding it for too long already. I decided I wanted to go shopping. I had some money still, judging by the fact I hadn't done anything to spend it for a month, due to the whole not going outside thing. Just to be safe though, I put my laptop in my backpack and brought it. I'm not going to lie it's been so long since I've left this flat that I nearly walked out of the door without putting pants on.

It's August, and the weather's still warm enough, and of course humid, it being London. I try pretty hard not to look too much like an emo kid, even though I'd accidentally worn all black, by smiling at old ladies and harmless looking people who I decided wouldn't hurt me. I don't really know where I'm going, so I just head to Starbucks. Typical, yes, but also somewhere I can go on Wi-Fi. I mean, baby steps, right? At least I'm going on the internet in public. Even thinking this, I felt pretty pathetic. Like a grade-A potato, professional at Not Caring about Anything in Life except Technology, which of course is a shitty title nobody really wants to be known by. I accidentally laughed out loud at myself, nobody is here to know me as anything. Arriving, I hide my face behind my laptop again.

I'm not going to lie, I'm already extremely curious about whether Phil had said anything back over e-mail. Actually that's an understatement, sadly. It was the reason I decided to go to Starbucks. Also, I wanted a Pumpkin Spice Latté. I force myself to open Tumblr instead of G-mail though, and head up to the counter to ask for my drink, noticing that the girl behind is in fact beautiful. Symmetrical face, golden hair, and green eyes, stunning really. I make an effort to look cool of course, giving her a smile with half my face only. I read about hot, main character, boys doing that in some cheesy girl's books, I'm not going to pretend I didn't read twilight.

"PSL," I say, hoping to sound short termed and clever with my words. I want to come off as intelligent to such a pretty person.

Much to my surprise, she snorts out a laugh, " Aren't you a little too cool of a guy to order a latté?" she queries.

Well, there goes my manly impression. I look down, thinking about how turned off I already am by her closed-mindedness. I shove the money across the table and, trying a different route, say, "Hey, don't judge and pretend like they aren't the most delectable drink here."

"Huh?" her eyes glaze over a bit, as though she's confused by my vocabulary.

"Uh... they're yummy." I pull my phone out of my pocket awkwardly and pretend to text one of my many cool people friends, ending the conversation before it gets any more interesting. That went so well. I grab my Gay Latté and reposition myself and my laptop around the corner of the coffee shop in order to further hide form my problems.

Okay, no avoiding it any further, nothing to do now but check my e-mail. I try to take my time opening the page, feeling stupid for the amount of anticipation I'm feeling. Just to waste time, I look up and scan the room, making eye contact with the girl at the counter again as she looks up from her phone. Out of habit, I avoid her eye contact by pretending I heard something beside me and looking that way as quickly as possible. Typically, that way just happened to be directly at a wall.

Phil had of course mailed me back in the time it took me to walk to Starbucks and sound super cool for that girl, being an internet hobo like me, but with more meaning to his hobo-ness. And there it is- his Skype name, telling me it so I know the invite isn't from some creeper. I smile full on, face hidden behind my screen, and bite down on my lip as I switch to the Skype tab, accepting his request, and opening his profile to send him a message:

I'm kind of actually in the outside world, so I can't really talk right now without feeling socially awkward. But soon.

I take a minuet to look it over, knowing that I should probably already feel comfortable typing to him, and send it even though I don't yet fully believe in my ability to not sound like a weirdo. I'm beginning to feel super antsy to get home, but at the same time I want to take my time, because a) the sooner I got home the sooner I'll have to face Phil, like face-to-face face him, and b) the longer I take the more it seemed like I have a life.

It's been too long since I'd decided to leave Starbucks, and just the same it's been awhile since I've been on Skype. I'm just going to avoid it even more. Actually, so much so that I hadn't even opened my laptop when I'd stepped into my flat, just shut the door behind me and put my laptop down, letting myself sigh over how worked up I am about such a small thing, it's pathetic. Eventually, I decide to further this day of adventures by playing the piano, something I hadn't done in at least two months.

Music has always been very special to me (cough, cough, gay, I know), and soothing in a way. I wanted to learn as much as I could before I got absorbed into accepting my life as the internet, and I used to take lessons. It's just been so long. As I sit down, my fingers find their spots comfortably in B major, and from there I close my eyes tightly and try to remember the keys as I play, roughly at first, a key off every now and then, Muse's Starlight. Not overly difficult, and once I begin to remember, my fingers are easily on their way without my telling them. I keep my eyes closed anyways, listening to the contrast between the keys as I hit them, focusing first on the melody, then on the base line and underlying counter melody. The song ends before I want it to, and as if on cue, my laptop pops, a Skype sound similar to the MSN one I used to be so familiar with.

I cave and set down next to my laptop, deciding to calm down about the whole situation, and just check it without putting myself through any more misery. Phil's online and has sent me back a message just saying okay, but in a nice way, because he obviously understands the life of an internet hobo and how being in public was a special occasion for me. I don't know if I expected any less. I smile and close the Skype tab, opening YouTube and typing in once again, AmazingPhil.

And there I stay, of course. My parents came home from work and set back out, I don't know where. When I look up next from my laptop it was because I'm hungry. I tell myself to go get some cereal in a cup, basically what I ended up resorting to for dinner at least four times a week, but my general urge to be lazy takes over and I decide my stomach can probably last for a few more minutes.

I hear it for a second time then, a thud in the kitchen. It's kind of a peculiar-for lack of better word-sound. Like something soft but dense hitting the floor, a bouncy ball maybe? But not exactly that. The first time I heard it kind of scared me, because it was unfamiliar, but now it mostly makes me curious. I mean, someone wouldn't break in twice, and it definitely sounds like it's coming from the kitchen around the corner, and not the flat above or below me. I decide it was maybe a good time for that glass of cereal now.

The kitchen's colder than the living room, probably because my laptop isn't in it to heat it up. I shiver only a little bit as I walk in, slowly and dramatically around the corner. I may or may not be pretending to be in a secret agent movie. Hey, when you're alone all you have to do something with your life to not feel totally crazy. Because pretending I'm a secret agent makes me feel completely sane. Either way, I waste a whole lot of time trying to convince myself to just walk around the corner and look. When I do, I'm not surprised to see nothing. Whatever it was, it could have been small. Or maybe something in the wall. I ponder over this while I opened the cupboard to grab a glass, and reach beside the fridge for a box of Cheerios.

All is well until I feel a breeze on the back of my neck. I turn around to see the source of it, and it really doesn't take much brain to know it's the window, open. This would be normal if it wasn't late August, and if my parents weren't been out. Using logical reasoning that I learned in education before I was spit out of it, I decide the window was forgotten about, instead of letting my human instincts tell me to be scared. I dismiss it easily enough with that, and move my attention back to what I was doing.

I've never really had that feeling you get when you're being watched, as often as I hear about it, but there is some weird sense that surrounds me as I leave the kitchen, glass and spoon in hand as though I could use them as a weapon if an axe murder were to jump out at me. I'm not sure if I feel eyes on me, or if I'm just having déjà-vu from hearing the same noise last week. I'm pretty familiar with the usual strange senses I feel, but this one catches me off guard. Like a prickle in the air, or a sound so low pitch a human can't hear it. I shake it off, and head back to the comfort of my bedroom, laptop in hand.

It takes a few minutes for my old school VAIO laptop to turn on, and when it does, it doesn't surprise me that Phil's online, so I click to his Skype profile and prepare myself to call him. I may or may not have fixed my hair before doing so, but not to look good, more like to not look scary. It's 9 at night already and I have no reason to look extra nice or anything, so I don't do anything more, at least not after I catch myself overthinking my actions again. I can't be blamed too much, this is the first time in so long that something vaguely exciting has happened in my life. Exchanging cell numbers and Facebook profiles hadn't been so hard, just another way to communicate through digital text or whatever, and even then it was no problem for me to type a quick text that probably contained a typo. We knew each other well enough for that, we're comfortable enough for it. There's just something about face-to-face that makes me more nervous than I probably should be.

I click the call button, cursing myself for over thinking it once more, and wait. It takes him all of ten rings and, boom, there's his face. I smile super wide almost against my will.

"Well, hello there, Amazing Phil," I start out all classy, playing up my southernism, but at the same time stopping myself from saying something like 'nice face'.

He laughs, smiling too, a little out of breath, probably just ran from his kitchen or something. What did I expect? Stupid, sweet, Phil to suddenly decide my face wasn't worth looking at? "You look exactly like your pictures."

"Yeah, man. I'd say the same but I basically look at you all of the time already so it's really no big deal." Damn it, Dan, calm your shit.

"How was your social experience today," I could see his eyes searching for conversation

"I would have honestly preferred it to have been less social, not going to lie."

And from there we kick off, our own little world. It soon feels like we were texting each other like I used to in class, complaining about general society, and him listening. It does feel surreal, talking basically face-to-face with someone I'd only seen on the internet and so highly admired, but here we are, friends. And, before I know it, it's two in the morning and I have developed my natural browsing position, featuring my best angle, without really caring or taking notice, because Phil's just as relaxed. In fact, so much so that I don't even notice how easy it is talking to him until he admits he's sleepy.

Of course, as soon as he's logged off I begin thinking through what just happened, but for the first time my thoughts are positive. He put up with my stupid sense of humor, even though I know it's quite different from his. In fact, thinking about it I can see how we are two very different people, but the alike at the same time. Like he's the anti-me, while still being me. Like Loki and Thor, very different outlooks on the world- but similar in their brotherhood. I smile through already sore cheeks, comparing Phil and I to brothers- a close relationship I'd wanted with him since I watched his first video. Is it pathetic of me to care so much? Gay, maybe, that I feel too attached to this other boy. But, he's such a sweet heart, and even my best friends over the years haven't been so like me in their interests.

I fall asleep, probably around three in the morning, his face in my mind, as cheesy and dumb as that feels to say, it's only the truth. I'm obsessing over this guy, and though I regret the thought of it, I don't mind it so much in reality.