Ten Minutes

I opened an anonymous-chat website and decided to see what would happen.

Ten minutes later, I closed it.

That was enough.

The idea sounded good before I entered. Two strangers could meet without names, photographs, history, or the small calculations that usually come with identity. Nobody needed to impress anybody for tomorrow. If the conversation went badly, it could simply disappear.

For perhaps thirty seconds, this still seemed promising.

Then somebody insulted me.

I answered.

Another stranger appeared.

More insults.

I no longer remember the exact words, and I am glad. The language itself was not memorable. What stayed with me was the speed at which the room changed me.

I had entered curious.

Within minutes, I was swearing at people I did not know.

There was something almost efficient about it. No introductions, no misunderstanding built over years, no old wound requiring explanation. Two anonymous people could dislike each other immediately and save enormous amounts of time.

After a few exchanges, I noticed that I was beginning to expect hostility before the next person had even written anything. The website had taught me its local custom very quickly.

Stranger appears.

Prepare.

Strike first or answer harder.

Move on.

The whole thing began to feel less like conversation and more like standing in a dark room while people took turns throwing small objects.

I had been there only a few minutes.

That was the disturbing part.

It would have been easy to leave thinking, What terrible people. But I had already joined them. The place had not merely shown me rude strangers; it had recruited me into the same behavior.

I watched the clock.

Ten minutes.

I had probably exchanged more insults in those ten minutes than in any other ten-minute period of my life.

The experiment did not require eleven.

I closed the page.

The room around me was quiet again. Nobody knew my name. I did not know theirs. There would be no apology the next morning, no awkward meeting, no need to repair anything. The conversations had vanished exactly as the website promised.

That freedom had been the attraction.

It was also the problem.

I had entered because nobody knew who I was.

I left because, after ten minutes, I did not particularly like who I had become there.