Thomas, 3 a.m.
He wrote to me for six weeks and never once asked for what you're imagining. That conversation is what made me understand what I actually do.
The first message came in on a Tuesday, at 3:12 a.m.
"Sorry to bother you at this hour."
I answered in the morning. The next night, same time, another message. Then the night after that. For six weeks, almost every night, between 2 and 4 a.m.
Let's call him Thomas — that isn't his name.
What he never asked me for
Here's what struck me: in six weeks, Thomas never once asked me for a photo.
Not one. No custom content, no video, none of what people picture when they think about this kind of subscription.
He told me about his day. A job on rotating shifts, an apartment that was too quiet, insomnia he'd had for years. He wrote well, with an odd sort of politeness, and he started nearly every message by apologizing for the hour.
The fifth week
One night he wrote me something I haven't forgotten:
"I don't think I write to you because you're beautiful. I write to you because you answer."
I sat in front of the screen for a while.
Because that's exactly it. It isn't the image that keeps people — images are everywhere, free, endless. What keeps them is that on the other side, someone reads.
What I changed afterwards
Three things, and I've stuck to them since.
I answer everyone. No sorting between the ones who spend and the ones who don't. A message is a message.
I save some replies for the morning. Someone writing at 3 a.m. doesn't need an answer at 3:05. They need to find something waiting when they wake up.
I stopped pretending to be busy. I used to reply late on purpose, because someone told me you had to "build desire". It's a stupid strategy, and a slightly contemptuous one. I stopped.
Where he is now
Thomas is still subscribed, six months later. He writes much less — two or three times a week, and never at 3 a.m. any more.
He changed jobs. He sleeps.
He wrote to me one day: "you didn't have much to do with it, you know." Probably not. But there were six weeks when someone answered him, and I think that counts for something.
I tell this story because people often ask what the subscription "includes". There's the official answer — the photos, the sets, the daily posts. It's true.
And there's the other one: it includes someone who reads what you write.
It sounds like nothing. It's the rarest thing there is.
