"I want friends, or even just acquaintances, it doesn't matter." The Internet Old-Timers' Association is in tears! Learning from a desperate Masuda with zero friends: The cultural anthropology of liver pâté and loneliness. Why do modern people seek "acquaintances" in a sea of 1s and 0s, scribbling their loneliness like the cave paintings of Lascaux? Is the bond with a nurse just a rental video? A human observation essay filled with sorrow and laughter that strips away the vanity of social media. If you don't wash the mixer, it will smell.

It happened while I was wandering through a corner of the internet, the Hatena Anonymous Diary (commonly known as Masuda).

A title filled with such profound emptiness caught my eye.

"I want friends, or even just acquaintances, it doesn't matter."

At first, I thought it was just another typical monologue from a lonely person on the internet.

"Yeah, yeah, another 'I'm so lonely' post. It's the same type of thing as people on social media posting 'Looking for someone to talk to on call,' right?"

My finger scrolling down the screen maintained a completely business-like coldness.

However, as I continued reading, my brain cells suddenly began to stir.

That Masuda (the poster) was connecting human connections, pulses, and mineral veins with a mysterious sense of language, kneading liver pâté named loneliness while lamenting his own depleted human relationships.

Normally, one would just dismiss it here, saying, "That's tough, why don't you try a matching app?"

But my ghost whispered quietly to me.

"Wait. Could this be a philosopher of the Reiwa era, performing a real-life pilgrimage to the holy land of 'I Have Few Friends'?"

Before I knew it, I was accepting this abnormal situation of "having no friends" with the same solemnity as a NASA flight controller watching the Apollo 11 moon landing.

At this point, a bookmark comment hijacked my field of vision.

"When you're hospitalized, you can get the illusion that you've become acquaintances with the nurses and the medical team. It disappears in an instant when you're discharged, though."

Hey, hey, what kind of life hack is that?

That is, so to speak, a "rental video of human relationships."

You pay with a life-threatening crisis instead of a late fee, and when the return deadline called 'discharge' arrives, the bond (※illusion) with that kind nurse vanishes into the past in an instant.

I was becoming intensely engrossed.

This is not just the grumbling of a lonely person.

It is the purest crystal of the culture that the Internet Old-Timers' Association once spread on text sites, the culture of "Real-life success, go explode."

Modern social media is overflowing with a "false combat power" called follower count.

While everyone flaunts shallow connections, on the horizon of this Masuda post, a human anthem that is all too real and all too raw rings out: "I don't even have acquaintances. But liver pâté is delicious."

My heart was burning with emotion.

I want friends, but I can't connect. Even though there must be millions of people like that all over Japan, for some reason, everyone is like an "astronomer observing invisible stars," recognizing each other's existence but never intersecting.

This frustration is the very pinnacle of subculture. I am currently observing the abyss known as the structural flaws of modern society.

I felt a fierce sense of emotion for the Masuda author on the other side of the screen.

Why do people reveal their "loneliness" to total strangers?

It is nothing more than the act of painting a modern-day Lascaux cave mural in the sea of electrons, saying "I am here," before one's existence vanishes from history like the disappearance of GeoCities.

No matter how trivial the monologue, there is a primitive human prayer within it.

Even a useless cooking advice comment like "Liver pâté is incredibly delicious when you make it yourself and eat it fresh" starts to look like a single flower of kindness blooming on the edge of despair.

However, such emotional solidarity ends the moment you close the browser.

Just as the golden age of Flash suddenly vanished one day.

No matter how much we empathize in front of our screens, there exists a cold, unyielding wall of liquid crystal between the Masuda author and us that can never be crossed.

When I think about that, an unbearable sorrow that makes my chest ache comes rushing in.

…….

……No, well, yeah.

I've been talking about life theories that sound all profound and stuff.

I want you to think about this calmly.

I was just reading the diary of a total stranger with zero friends in the middle of a weekday, seriously taking notes on a life hack about how "if you don't wash the liver pâté blender properly, it will smell."

What kind of modern Lascaux cave painting is that?

What do you mean, human relationships are like rental videos?

Isn't that just a net addict's escapism?

Alright, now that I've come to my senses, I'm going to head to the supermarket alone tonight to get some fresh chicken liver, still with zero acquaintances.

The internet is the best.