Internet Time Machine

The Theory of Visitors

Even though every relationship is ephemeral, that didn’t stop me from pursuing human connection

Sam Lansky
Human Parts
Published in
26 min readNov 10, 2017

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Illustrations: Maria Medem

This story is part of the Internet Time Machine, a collection about life online in the 2010s.

I went on dates.

I went on a Tinder date with a schoolteacher who read me poetry aloud on his faded leather couch, but he seemed a little too earnest for me, so I went on a Hinge date with a musician who sang songs to me from the piano, but I was afraid to get involved with another creative type, and then I went on a Raya date with a movie producer who took me to a dinner so fancy it felt like a brag, and I imagined what it would be like to be a stepfather to his daughters, flaxen-haired sprites with names like Annabelle or Clarissa, but then I decided I was too young for all that, and I went on a date with a college student I met on Bumble who told me he couldn’t afford to eat out, so we sat on a curb on Sunset eating soft corn tacos from a truck on the corner, and for a moment I felt older than I really was, older than I had ever been before, though in fact I wasn’t even 30 yet.

I went on dates with older guys and learned to get their references, the same allusions to movies and television shows released before I was…

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