Story time? Story time.

I have this tucked in me for years, but have not gotten around to writing about it. Years ago, in the age of internet forums, I met a Filipino boy who lived in Switzerland. About 3 years older than me (I was 16 then), we would talk about everything. 1/

His dad was active in the forums, too. However, his dad would usually talk to the older kuyas in the forum. I hung out virtually with the younger people in the forum who were around my age, including this boy. They divulged little information about themselves 2/

the only facts we knew that they were Pinoys who lived abroad, they were cool, and this boy—who used the screen name "Darth Jesus"—loved to cook. I was into blogging then, specifically in LiveJournal. He would blog in LJ too, posting recipes sometimes, 3/

and once jokingly named a pasta dish after me. Of course, knowing already then that I am gay, I brushed off this boy's flirtatious advances but still kept him as a good online friend. We would talk over GChat most nights, and then when Plurk went big, we would banter there too 4/

He would send me stuff from Europe—the limited edition Harry Potter stamps from France, bookmarks from Ireland, shirts from Switzerland. My dad, at one time, suspected I had a relationship with this boy I met online. Lol. 5/

One day, he stopped posting and found out from one of his friends that he died. Darth Jesus was dead. But it didn't end there. The mystery only begun, and bits of the truth came out. DJ, as it seems, was another online identity that his dad made. It was the dad who died IRL. 6/

When he was alive, he would post photos of himself, of course posing as a 19-year old. We would find out that, indeed, those were photos of his son IRL. But here's the thing: his son never knew us online. Most likely didn't know that his dad was using his identity. 7/

I added the son on Facebook years ago, after DJ's death, and it all seemed surreal. All those years, I thought this was the face of the boy I was talking to, but turned out that I was friendly with a forty-something year-old man. 8/

After all these years, I still don't know how to make sense of it. I'm sure there's an internet cautionary tale there somewhere. But he was, sans the identity fraud, was a dear friend. I didn't know how to mourn him.

Oh well. Here's your Sunday night story. 9/9