Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire and Skinny and of the New York Times column Going Off. Her work has appeared in GQ, The Wall Street Journal, New York, The Paris Review Daily, Glimmer Train Stories, Esquire, and elsewhere. She recently won the Orlando Prize from A Room Of Her Own Foundation. She teaches writing in New York City and for Stanford University's Online Writer's Studio.
You wrote, “Hello. Nice profile.” You asked me how my week was going. I hadn’t opened my blinds in five days. I thought about responding, “My week is going well.” I imagined us in two years, dining in a restaurant in silence. You mentioned lube. You asked, “What music and literature do you enjoy?” Nobody talks like that in real life. I wanted to pretend this was real life. You wrote, “You help me for…
