I Ran Into One of My Substack Readers and Ended Up in Tears

Vampire smut was playing through my AirPods as I passed the consignment/pickle store on Wythe and Second. Two postgrads in low-rise jeans, clutching bell hooks, passed me, and over a borderline rape scene, I heard my name.

She had light blue eyes and dark brown hair and was speaking excitedly before the gap between us had even closed. “I don’t know if Devon mentioned me,” she said, “but I’m Georgia. You RSVP’d to my house party, but I think you couldn’t make it.”

I strained my face into a smile. “No, sorry,” I said. “I don’t remember.” Why are you being a bitch?

Watching her face fall, I scrambled. “Thanks for saying hi.” Why am I being so fucking cagey?

Here’s the thing… I knew exactly why.

3 Months Earlier:

Wedged between the fake mudroom Dalis, a sign in oversized Helvetica read, “What’s Your Style of Tiktok Autism?”

“Okay,” Devon said. “Remember, it’s either a nice Asian or a mean Slavic, just so long as they’re hot.”

I took a long, slow breath and counted to five before smiling and gently reminding him not to sort women into Pornhub categories.

Naturally, the first thing partygoers encountered was a table covered in laminated cards, where an attendant told us to write our names and select our preferred flavor of latent autism.

Has one cup that makes water taste correct.

One minor schedule change from becoming nonverbal.

Nice choice, a tall blonde man said over my shoulder, as I selected: Can taste when they changed the packaging but Before I could respond, Devon clapped him on the shoulder. Tova, Ryan. Ryan, Tova. Then he gestured over the pool of heads bobbing beneath the chandelier. He shot me a wink. Ryan is the host.

And a practiced one, I could tell, when almost mechanically he asked how Devon and I knew each other. I laughed. I told him we’d been set up by a mutual friend and after that Devon had decided to record and analyze our date from an AI device hanging from his neck. I decided his particular flavor of neurodivergence was better suited to friendship and we’d been wingmanning each other ever since.

Damn, Ryan said, “autistic enough to record your dates” would’ve been such a good card.

“More like autistic enough to stay single for the rest of my life.”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t get it, you know a ton of hot women. What about that smokeshow tech girl you brought to my last party?”

“Georgia?” He puffed out his cheeks. “Oh, I wish.”

Ryan laughed. “A girl like that probably doesn’t stay single long.”

“She doesn’t,” Devon said. “Someone snatches her up every time she is.”

I looked between them. “Who’s Georgia?”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “She’s basically a dating-pool unicorn: perfect age, supermodel hot, but also runs a multimillion-dollar tech company.”

He turned to Devon. “If she’s ever single again, you better call dibs.”

Devon shook his head. “No way, dude. I a hundred percent call dibs.”

“Then don’t fumble it, homie, you can tell she’s used to like Michelin-star dinners, so don’t do that coffee date bullshit.”

The conversation got significant less interesting as the topic pivoted from Georgia to some software company they both used and I wandered off, letting a variety of tech founders mansplain generative AI to me until my dissociative state got the better of me and I called it a night

It wasn’t until later, when I scrolled stomach-down on my bed, that I noticed a DM from Ryan.

It was really nice meeting you. I’d love to get to know you more.

A current of excitement moved through me and I texted back immediately.

I’m free Thursday. There’s a late-night tea house we could go to if you’re down?

His response came almost immediately.

I was thinking we just chill at my place. I’ll get a bottle of wine and you can swing by around 9:30?

Do you mind if we meet somewhere outside?

I mean sure but in that case lets just try another night.

I closed my eyes, flashing back to when I pressed my knees into the floor in the back of my high school gym, giving head to Ben, my cute high school crush. I didn’t mind that he didn’t reciprocate, I only asked for one thing months into our secret little arrangement, “Can you take me to the next school dance?” He’d looked away saying he’d had to go and it was the last time we talked. Later when I’d confronted him prom, begging him to tell me why he’d brought another girl his vodka laced breath had gone hot in my ear, “because Tova, some girls are pretty enough to date and some are only pretty enough to fuck.”

Ben’s subtext was as gutting as Ryan’s but because slashing my wrist would’ve been too 2010’s, I decided to self harm the cosmopolitan way. I opened another tab, and I searched for Georgia.

Her Medium article described a 24-year old with a medical technology company and Georgia’s trials involving Alzheimer’s patients. I tore through it all before scrolling back up and zooming in on her poreless headshot.

After tossing my phone face down on my bed, my studio was plunged into darkness and though I tried to gather it I couldn’t summon the disdain to hate this altruistic, hot Elizabeth Holmes. That said, I had no appetite to meet her. So when Devon suggested I meet Georgia, I declined. And when he later marked me down as his plus-one to her house party, I found a reason not to go.

But now she was standing right in front of me on a Williamsburg sidewalk, her radiant face slipping into that universal girl expression of why does this woman I’ve never met seem to hate me? And though part of me wanted to walk away, watching her face fall triggered something compulsive in me.

“I’m sorry. I do know who you are…”

Behind the paywall is how I kind of had a mental breakdown in front of Georgia, and how she turned it into something genuinely transformative.