Runtime Error: Love, Logic, and the Win32 API
By Ramanuj On 11 Jan 2026
I have never really had any IRL friends. I have always been, and still am an introvert. This has lead me to being isolated from everyone. The closest thing I had to friends IRL was a group of classmates in elementary school. Though I faced a lot of bullying from them. I have friends online, but they are distant. The average conversation revolves either around uwu's or programming shenanigans. This is mostly fine, but there is an inherent distance in every message.
Previously, When I was in 7'th grade or so, I didn't really think much of friendships. I thought an "introvert" does not require any. This thought stayed with me till 8th grade. Then I got more into philosophy, and read (or at least tired to) a book called "Letter's from a stoic" by seneca. It caused quite a lot of things. I developed a new understandings of friendships. I lost 100$ trying to practice this in an online friendship (That lasted for around 2 years ). I am not denying ancient stoic wisdom, but to anyone trying to apply it to IRL: they must know that the landscape has changed. The "True friendships" seneca talked to about are modern relationships. Those are true: yes, but they are also very fragile.
Technically speaking, one doesn't really need friendships in the modern world due to the progress we made. But, it's ancestral circuitry, and we are too young to change that; Thus, Even in a world with this much advances in communication we feel lonely.
Off to the juicy details: At first i thought my classmates were kinda dumb, and the people i meet online are probably smarter than them. Most have built entire operating systems, so that doesn't come as a surprise. But, this all changed with one singular boy. I was around about in late 8th grade november, when I saw him. I immediately caught a liking to him. I was ready to sell my soul to the devil to have his company. I just wanted a normal casual friendship. But, this would prove to be difficult, and maybe impossible.
I learned about symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption to just send a message to him. I discussed it in discord servers, and got familiar with the enigma machine. At the end, I just tired sending a message using I wouldn't be on earth if t whatsapp: this was a really really bad move. The next day, the whole school was talking about how i had pages upon pages of chat with him. I wish this was true.
I tired a second time: I built an entire password manager from scratch. I got into contact with the literal founder of keepass (a very very popular local password manager) to learn about the win32 API (Yes, windows NOT arch). It took a month. I sent it off. Nothing happened. I wrote an poem --- my first one, and 4 pages long. Nothing happened. I talked to his bf: nothing happened. I saw him on an airplane while having a fever (that was mostly likely him), I tried. But my illness overwrote me. I started to worry a lot about my exam scores not because I would receive a goddam transfer certificate, but I won't be able to able to justify the shenanigans with a low score.
I have done several stupid things, now that i think about it. He once had a flue, and I knew i should probably either get away from him. I did not. I caught it; suffered for 3 days. I laughed. Was it worth it? Probably. I remember it got to the point, where my only reason for going to school was to see him.
I tired to forget about him. It worked, but also not. Whenever I had almost forgotten of his existence, some old memory resurfaced; I was back to crying. These memories usually follow a pattern: They start with a high then dip into nihilism. Every hour I had suicidal thoughts. I did quite a bit of "self-harm".
At december I saw him my home. I froze till he left. Crashed out for the entirety of that day. I had to tell my parents about "some" of the shenanigans. They were mostly fine. It's been close to week, and still the memories replay. I wanna leave my school asap, but It's a weird mess. Leaving would mean I don't get to see him, and thus my mind wouldn't be hit with a rock every few seconds. But then that's also the problem. Maybe I should learn to control my emotions. I wish i could just revert it all, and forget entirely of him but ah well..... Why does a random boy has control over my mind? I... don't know. I probably won't know --- ever. To this day, he remains a mystery to me. I have never seen such a boy in my entire life, and I probably never will. Those eyes have something alluring in them for sure