Logging Off

It’s unsettling to read the forum without Daniella’s posts. Her texts arrive every day, buoyed by a cheerfulness that feels affected more than natural. She is trying to fill up the time.

But everyone else is posting on the forum. As autumn shifts into winter, there’s a burst of energy where people get in their last foraging trips and start pickling their finds for the winter. You read all this with an inchoate dissatisfaction that sharpens into resentment. One evening you see cypress_31 complaining about their incompetent Parks and Rec department, and you’re tempted to post something snarky: Um, isn’t this off topic? Too political or something?

You don’t want to post when you’re angry. Which means you’re posting less now, which gives you a bit more space to examine your life. Alice hasn’t texted you in ages, and it is weeks until you realize why. She makes plans, normally; all you have to do is show up. Once you started canceling on her, she stopped reaching out. When you open your texts, the last message she sent you was from weeks ago: Hey. Busy this Friday, I assume?

Apparently you are always busy, too busy to text back.

One evening you are posting with particular energy — answering questions, redirecting new users to the forum’s FAQ — and the next morning you wake up to a private message from one of the moderators.

Your first reaction is defensive, anxious. What have I done wrong? You start reading.

From: soil_to_soil Moderator

To: chaparral

Hey, hope you’re doing well. We’re thinking of adding some new moderators across different time zones. The forum’s grown a lot and it’s frankly hard for us to keep up. You’ve always been really level-headed and a pleasure to talk to — would you be interested?

You feel knocked out by an entire range of emotions: pride, self-consciousness, excitement, anxiety. It’s nice to be recognized, nice to be trusted. But it also serves as a tangible signifier that you’ve been spending way too much time online.

You feel overwhelmed. You close your laptop, and as soon as the light of the screen is gone you are aware of how alone you are, sitting in a untidy room with the evening light slipping away.

You want to talk about this to someone, but you’re not sure who. Daniella has stopped mentioning the forum in her texts. So you decide to reach out to Alice.

Hey! Things have been really busy — have they? It’s a standard white lie, you think — I’d love to catch up. I’m sorry I haven’t been reaching out lately.

You deliberate a bit, and then add: I really want your advice on something.

She responds instantly. Her love language, you’ve always suspected, is advising people on their lives. You make plans for drinks after work.

When you arrive at the bar she acts noticeably cooler towards you. “It’s been incredibly hard to stay in touch with you,” she says. And it’s true, obviously. But once your drinks arrive, she relaxes a little. She runs you through everything you’ve missed: a new crush, a frustrating performance review at work, a family drama. An hour in, you tell her about the forum.

“I didn’t know you were so into this,” she says. “So, moderating — what does that involve?”

You explain: orienting people around the forum, projecting a certain authoritative warmth, mediating fights. She laughs at this.

“I didn’t think you liked dealing with conflict. Do you want to make it your problem? Do you just feel special that they asked you?”

Alice has a certain skill you’ve always envied: being direct without being unkind.

“I think so,” you say slowly. “I don’t know if I’d be good at it. It might just make me spend more time online, which — might not be a good thing.”

She tilts her glass, inspects the dregs of her cocktail, and looks back at you. “There’s definitely some stuff you like about this community,” she says. “Is that enough? Or do you wish it was a different kind of space?”

When you return home you feel unburdened. You spend some time looking outside your window, at the frail, leafless deciduous trees lining the street. You’re thinking about the forum.

You do like the community. Not always. Not as it is. But you appreciate all the users who encouraged you to see the natural world differently, who were generous with their knowledge, who cultivated a gentle and welcoming forum.

And yet you’ve been frustrated with the community ever since Daniella left. You still resent the way it was handled. You wonder, often, what you would have done as a moderator, what space you would make for a conversation like that.

Surely there will be a next time, a next argument. Do you want to be the person to handle it?

• Accept the moderator position ›
• Decline the moderator position ›