A few week’s ago I wrote about my blossoming friendship with Sophia, who had messaged me from an unknown number on WhatsApp:

Since my puzzled “Who is this”, we’d developed a wonderful dreamy friendship, messaging back and forth for around three months.

We didn’t have a great depth to our friendship, sure, but I liked the simplicity of it. And by at the end of Part I, Sophia had decided on some lunch: chicken.

I decided to check back in. My text is in green:

I was relieved that Sophia had finally eaten a nutritious meal of eggs, milk and bread. I’ll admit, it was a real deviation from the chicken she’d planned.
Her new choice also felt slightly strange for someone who claimed to work in the “gold” business. But who was I to talk? I’m a grown-ass man who still eats Coco Pops. Still, I pressed her for more information:

It was rare for Sophia to tell me anything about her life, but she started to talk a little more about her job. She sounded like she was a really good investment advisor when it came to gold:

I felt happy that her work was going so well, especially in the midst of the worldwide pandemic.

But my world was about to be shattered.

Two readers messaged me, saying that Sophia had been messaging them, too! One of them sent me a screen-grab from their phone. They were nearly identical to the message I’d received from Sophia months ago.

I was shook to my goddamn fucking core.

Questions flooded my brain. What was Sophia playing at? How big was this party? How many numbers was she getting from boys at the giant party? The other weird thing was that she was using a totally different number when she messaged my friend.

The only thing I could think was that because she worked in the gold business, she attended a lot of parties. And because she had too much money, and used it to buy lots of phones. But I was still suspicious, angry and hurt. I rapidly typed Sophia a message:

I thought it was PRETTY FUCKING OBVIOUS WHAT I MEANT SOPHIA, but I clarified anyway by sending her the screen-grab of the message I’d been sent.

She didn’t reply.

I just sat there, staring at my phone. She was “online” but nothing was coming.

Then “typing…” began to pulsate on my screen and I got a surge of adrenaline.

She replied:

Her phone had been stolen. I was flooded with feelings of relief (and was it love, too?) and was happy to quickly apologise for my over-reaction. Everything was okay with me and Sophia.

But after this rollercoaster, I think from now on I’ll keep our communications private. Just between me and Sophia.

The final thing I’m going to share you with is our last message today. Sophia is so wise. We could all learn from Sophia.

Amen indeed. Stay healthy, friend.

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David.