Chatroulette

Andrey Ternovskiy built Chatroulette in high school. Moscow left something to be desired. His parents made an initial investment of $10,000. He paid them back with money earned with advertising, mostly from dating sites. Chatroulette uses several servers in Frankfurt, Germany. Chatroulette is where I first saw another man naked. Most of Chatroulette’s users are in the U.S. In middle school, I thought I was dating a girl I met on Chatroulette. In high school, a guy I met on Chatroulette thought I was his girlfriend. Under different circumstances, he was a maybe. He acted so surprised when he found out, but he must have already known. I was temporarily banned from the site on three separate occasions. Yesterday, after my girlfriend left me, I went on Chatroulette and cried for help. I didn’t know who else to turn to. Some boys in New Zealand poured one out for me. Some girls in Norway laughed and hit ‘next.’ At this point, how many people should I know? How many people have I talked to and forgotten? No one’s going to help me now.

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Sam Russek is a writer from Houston, Texas. His essays have appeared in Latinx Spaces and his poetry is forthcoming in E•ratio Poetry Journal. He (never) tweets @mr_samrussek. He also lied about something in his bio.