His name was Tom. He was a guy she’d gone on three perfectly fine dates with three months ago. He liked sourdough and hiking and talked about his feelings. She had thought, Maybe . But then he’d gone quiet. Now, he surfaced with a reply to her thread about algorithmic bias. Tom (@tombakesbread): I’m not saying racism isn't real. I’m just saying you seem to see it everywhere. Maybe the problem isn't the platform, it’s your perspective? Just trying to have a good-faith discussion. Lena stared at the notification. The little bell icon. The poison chalice.
She tapped Block . Then Add to list .
But Lena knew the truth.
She had folders, too, though Twitter didn't officially allow them. In her mind, they were color-coded.
Lena’s blocked list was, by any metric, a masterpiece. twitter blocked list
She opened her notes app. And for the first time in an hour, she wrote a sentence for herself.
Sometimes she felt like the block button was a confession. An admission that she was too weak, too fragile, for the marketplace of ideas. Her sister had told her, "You're just building an echo chamber." Her ex-therapist (Red folder, session 4) said, "Is it possible you're avoiding discomfort rather than growth?" His name was Tom
The architecture of solitude is not a wall. It is a door. And only you get to decide who has the key.
