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He asked, long after; the 27-year-old Bronx teacher who hated his students and also his life; the Philly native who didn't vote, has never voted, will never vote and doesn't care; the self-obsessed cartoonist who wrote his name in cum across your chest; the 36-year-old ginger who showed you photos of his ex; the 37-year-old French divorcee who cried right after sex; the violent sociopath with a knife in his bed who left bruises along your collarbone; the artist who promised you Coney Island, then found himself inside his ex weeks later; the musician; the waiter; the artist; the artist; the artist; the artist. You accept that you cannot even trust what seems like a sure thing, that nothing in life is certain, men even less so, that you will never get to write your own happy ending, because even the next boy, the one who pursued you hardest, who texted you and texted you and texted you and texted you, the one who found the tiniest chink in your armor and encouraged you to be brave despite it all, realized you were not enough to fight for, that you are not the type of woman who inspires grand gestures, or even small ones. You live inside your past pain, that unrequited love, the first of his kind who’d ever really seen you, who made you feel like you were worth something beyond the bullshit in your brain, who bailed when he realized you were maybe better on paper, that he was searching for 'great' and in you he only ever found 'good,' the one who ultimately left you feeling convinced that maybe death was the better alternative to never seeing him again. You no longer think warmly about that first boy, the one who took things when he wanted them, who knew you loved him and kissed you anyway, who told you you'd never be it for him, the only boy to ever get you off outside a bar, the one you shared fleeting moments of misinterpreted intimacy with, the only boy you've ever fallen in and out of love with, the one who made you believe your dad was right, that you are one of several someones who will never find their Great Love, and what a waste it is to have this brain and never be able to write it.

This is the tangible power of gravity’s pull and, much like that centrifugal force, human perseverance runs parallel to it all: The defiant thousands who attended One Love Manchester, helmed by elite members of our current-day pop royalty, helped highlight the genre's unifying power and fans' refusal to fear, simply by showing up. While it’s true that popular trends in music often take after whatever cultural climate reigns supreme at the time — which explains the melancholic tinge radio has embraced as of late — the power of pop lies largely in its ability to connect and unify, bringing with it a kind of untarnished, bubbly earnestness that doesn’t land quite as honestly elsewhere. Despite our society’s general shift toward malaise — apathy is the perceived “cool kid” emotion, after all — pop's transparency (the unabashed heartbreak that litters Taylor Swift's discography, the self-assuredness Beyonce preaches in the midst of romantic betrayal, the anthemic pull of every Sia single ever, Bruno Mars' sheer corniness, even Justin Bieber's sometimes uncomfortable religious embrace peppered throughout his sad-sackiest latest Purpose) coupled with its blatant cheese factor, remains near defiant in its rejection of coolness. I ultimately succumbed, days later, to my own curiosity and watched an online recording of One Love Manchester, and I came to realize what those in attendance knew all along: Of course a pop star would become a shining emblem of strength and fearlessness.

Last night I dreamt I was putting lotion on my legs in an attempt to soften their natural sandpaper finish, but giant mosquitoes kept landing all across my limbs, where they struggled and then drowned in the thick goop. It reminded me of that peculiar lie Disney helped perpetuate via their Oscar-winning documentary, 'White Wilderness.' In it, a hysterical group of lemmings purportedly commits suicide by hurling themselves off a cliff, plunging violently to the icy sea below. I woke up and immediately recalled the time I was at a restaurant in beautiful, overcast Milan, where I sat down to a plate of pizza -- only to discover tiny fruit flies slowly and painfully drowning to their deaths in, around and beneath hearty slices of mozzarella.

He texts me that same night, says I am the coolest person he's met in 2015. He runs a video department at a Millenial click-bait site that employs mostly terrible writers, so it isn't too far out of the realm of possibility. He likes my dress, I've never met a guy who doesn't. He says he doesn't understand why guys would ghost me.