In my determination to satisfy my curiosity, I messaged Johannes nine days after his reappearance in my inbox. During this time, I had Discord Nitro, a premium feature of the app. No, I didn't pay. I availed myself of the one-month free trial.
But before I proceed to write about our conversation, I'm going to backtrack and give a little snippet from our past; scenes that may not seem relevant, but will colour everything that follows.
Well, you know how when girls take pictures of their man, and the result is immaculate? Good angle, good lighting—basically capturing and immortalising the Greek god in their beloved darlings. However, when the roles are reversed and it's the men who take photos of their ladies, the result is the complete opposite?
Familiar with that?
Because that's exactly how Johannes was to me.
Yes, of course, not all men, but there's definitely an epidemic of that judging by the complaints of the women I know and the ones I see on social media.
So honestly though, why are men like this?
And the worst part is that they keep and "treasure" it, and say you look pretty despite all your efforts to convince them you look absolutely horrid. What is wrong with their eyes? Don't they see the hideousness of the monstrosities they capture? It's as if they deliberately channel the inner goblin of their muse.
One time, I was on a Zoom call with him, and all of a sudden, the bastard's background changed. Diary, the way my mouth dropped. He had it changed to my ugly, candid face. My eyes were half-closed mid-talking; it looked like I had an orgasm in the middle of a seizure. And the bastard knew exactly what he was doing. He laughed and laughed at my reaction. My entreaties and implorations for him to delete it were totally discarded to prolong his amusement. And I couldn't help but laugh, either! My face looked like a mortal disaster, and his laughter was annoyingly contagious. After a while of laughing, begging, and pleading—until there were tears in the corners of our eyes—his bullying finally ceased, and he returned to his original background.
But that didn’t end there. Months later, he sent another hideous picture of me—but this time, with stickers of hearts all around it, making me look like a Valentine clown. I was smiling in the picture, but it was the closed-lips-over-the-gums fake smile, which unflatteringly pronounced my cheekbones like the killer's mask from Saw. He said I looked so pretty and cute, but in my perspective, it was plain unsightly. I even saw with my own eyes later on that the bastard literally kept a separate folder of it on his computer—right among the desktop files. My supplications for him to delete it forever were once again—denied.
But the final straw—the true cherry on top of this hellish sundae—was when he created a private Discord server for just the two of us. Innocent enough. Until one day, I got a notification: he’d sent something to one of the channels. It was there I saw the same image of me from his desktop file, minimised into six damned emojis. Never in my life did I think I would see my own face in an emoji. And an ugly one at that!
Me: "WTFFFF. Are you on Nitro???"
Him: "No, 50 emojis are free."
I tried it out myself and sent one of that wretched fake-ass smile my face wore.
Me: "WTFFFF."
Him: "But we can use them just on our server."
Me: "I hate youuuu. Not fair."
Him: "Why?"
Me: "Make one for you too."
Him: "You can also create them." (sends 15 more) "But seriously, what did you think when you saw it?"
Me: "My first thought was wtf 🙂 But howww can I create one?"
With a little exploration, I successfully made one of him—an image of his masculine smugness in a black shirt, leaning back on his gaming chair, his hands casually resting behind his head, further emphasising his big and strong arms, his face dangerously handsome. I sent three emojis of these.
Me: "Ah, not fair. You look really good here. Have to find a goofy pic of you."
It was hard to find a goofy pic of him because even when he's being goofy, he still looks good. Is that how it was for him when he captured those awful images of me?
In the end, I managed to grab three:
1) A face of him deliberately making an angry frown
2) The same expression but with his head tilted a little to the side
3) Him smiling cheekily, similar to mine
None of these looked bad at all. They were just theatrically comical.
I sent three of each of them, and then added: "Now I'm happy 🤣"
Him: "Oh, fuck you."
Me: "Loveyoutoo!!"
How I remember this particular conversation so clearly and vividly, I don't. I literally had to go to our server to look for this history.
Now, let's go back to the present, when my curiosity gnawed at my mind so much I had to message him nine days after his reappearance.
Him: "Yes?"
As a response, I sent six of the customised emojis of him doing the comical angry frown. This is one of the perks of having Nitro—you can use limitless emojis from all the servers you are part of.
Him: "I hate you 😂😂😂😂😂"
Then I sent a thinking emoji 🤔—except that it looked completely deranged and angry, with arched unibrows.
Him: "Noob. What are you doing?"
Me: "Scrutinising. Since when do you play chess?"(sends screenshot of his zoomed-in shelf with a thick red mark encircling his chessboard)
Him: "Wtf. You looked at every detail? 😂"
Okay, I am guilty of that, but in hell was I gonna let him know I was that crazy and obsessed.
Me: "Just simply zoomed in."
Him: "I bought this chessboard years ago."
Me: "Ah, just like the guitars you never use, I suppose."
Him: "😂😂😂"
Me: "But yeah, was looking at the pictures you sent again. Great job 👍 Looks so nice and cosy, and not the typical lazy guy apartment at all."
Him: "😎😃"
Me: "Never would've guessed it's a man's apt, tbh 😂"
Him: "Hehe. Plot twist, I'm trans."
Me: "That would explain the flowers. Are they real?"
Him: "😂😂😂 No. Bought them from Temu."
Me: "😂 Oh. Was imagining you watering them daily or changing 'em when they wither."
Him: "I hate real flowers."
For some reason, this made me angry. I love flowers.
Me: "Why!"
Him: "Stinky."
Me: "Heh? They have such nice aromas."
Him: "Sometimes they stink."
Me: "You stink."
Him: "😔"
Me: "You are a beautiful flower 🙂"
When he no longer responded, I felt bad. Could you believe it? I. Felt. Bad. After everything he's done!
Me: "Tut mir leid, es war ein Witz."
Him: "😂😂😂"
It seemed to me like he had no interest in dragging the chat any further, so I just reacted to his laughing emojis with his own cheeky smile emoji. I was kinda bummed that the only answer I gathered from that convo was that the damn chessboard was only decorative, and that he most likely set the whole thing up in his apartment all by himself. No real clues. No confirmation of whether he was single.
Is he with someone or not? Grr.
Then, eleven hours later, to my surprise—a ping. A message.
Him: "Why do you have Discord Nitro?"
For that, I reacted with the most chaotic mix of emojis imaginable—from maniacal angry-crying-laughter, to real-life cat images, to an animated dancing SpongeBob, etc.
Me: "For my server. It's pretty useless to me so I'm going all out with the emojis."
Him: "Why do you have a server?"
Me: "Same reason you have one."
Him: "Why am I not invited?"
Me: "Because it's mine. Sole member."
Him: "Tze. Hate you."
Me: "Hate you more."
Then I dropped an "ich auch" emoji and a real-life cat with its tongue out under his hate message.
Him: "😂"
I didn't know how to interpret our interaction. Was he, by chance, flirting with me when he hinted at wanting to be in my server?