I accidentally discovered that Interac e-Transfer is an excellent personality test. So naturally, I requested $300 from five men I hadn’t spoken to in years.
Some were old coworkers. One was my old best friend’s cousin. One had survived an entire chapter of my life that, in hindsight, probably deserved its own disaster relief fund.
Then I took a nap.
When I woke up, my phone wasn’t exactly exploding, but it was considerably more alive than it had been all week.
One message simply read:
“Hey???”
Fair enough.
The funny thing is, people assume these kinds of impulses happen because you’re desperate. Sometimes they happen because you’re bored.
The kind of boredom that develops after months of surviving. When every conversation revolves around work, debt, overdue credit card payments, job interviews, business plans, responsibilities, and trying to keep your head above water.
Eventually, a strange part of your personality starts tapping you on the shoulder.
“Hey.”
“Remember me?”
“I’m the one that likes causing harmless problems.”
I’ve always had that side of me. I like teasing people. Pulling their leg. Watching the confusion unfold before revealing the joke.
Life spends enough time insisting we become serious. I think it’s important to occasionally remind it that we’re still capable of laughing.
But if I’m being completely honest.. it wasn’t only a joke. There was another thought quietly sitting underneath the whole thing.
As I scrolled through old names, I realized something. These people had all occupied an astonishing amount of space in my life once.
So the pettiest version of me randomly resurrected this Sunday, and decided to send a message to these men:
Hello, you consumed enough of my time and energy in the past. Please see attached invoice.”
They didn’t literally owe me money of course, but imagine if emotional labor were billable. Some people would owe us thousands.
My favorite response came from Z.
I first met Z years ago, at some traumatizing door-to-door sales job.
He once borrowed money from me during an emergency and, to his credit, paid me back as soon as he got paid.
He was always wholesome. Also deeply annoying. The kind of person who somehow finds himself surrounded by chaos while remaining strangely lovable.
When he received the request, he immediately messaged me.
“Hey????”
I responded.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
He explained, very patiently, that he thought I had accidentally requested money from the wrong person. He explained it once. Then again. Then a third time.
He wasn’t offended. He wasn’t defensive. He genuinely wanted to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake. So naturally I asked him,
“Why, you don’t have $300? Are you broke?”
At that point I imagine any reasonable person would have blocked me. Instead, he patiently explained the situation.. again. Eventually I admitted I was just messing with him.
“I was thinking about you,” I told him.
“I lost your number.”
He replied,
“Oh ya, no worries.”
“Hope everything’s good then.”
It was.. unexpectedly sweet.
The whole thing made me realize something:
For the past couple of years, I’ve quietly removed a lot of people from my life.
Old friends and flings. People connected through family and community. People connected through someone who knew someone who dated someone whose aunt apparently had an opinion about everybody.
It’s exhausting.
Sometimes relationships stop belonging to the two people inside them. They become community projects.
Everyone has context. Everyone has history.
Everyone has theories. Everyone knows somebody.
You start wondering whether you’re talking to one person or to an entire invisible committee standing behind them.
Z has none of that. No ties to my family, old friends, and community gossip circles.
He has no invisible audience. He’s just.. Z.
Reconnecting with him was delightfully refreshing.
Some relationships begin with “I love you.” Others begin with a $300 invoice. Shakespeare with a Laptop has room for both.