Ah, September. The beginning of the school year, the Jewish year, and my own personal rotation ‘round the sun. With the onset of this new annus (haha, etc.), I’ve decided to throw myself into a new sense of adventure. Branch out! Try new things! Take the risk! Chase the high! Follow the yellow brick road!
Lucky for me, September also marks the start of when2meet season. Clubs are figuring out meeting times, roommates are coordinating grocery trips, and my Virgo ass is busy optimizing my friend group’s GCB outings. It was in the process of filling out one such when2meet that I discovered my new adrenaline source. Instead of going with my standard ‘n’ password, I decided to skip it altogether.
I know.
It’s true.
I am a daredevil.
I hit ‘Sign In’ and felt a rush go through my body. This is it, I realized, I’m finally living on the edge. My heart was pounding in my ears as I filled out Monday. And then Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And then… the anxiety came. This is nuts. Anybody could just come in and pretend to be me and change my availability. Should I log out? Would I be able to log back in but this time with a password? Would I have to create a second identity for this when2meet? But that would just fuck everything up, it’ll inaccurately alter the availability percentages cause I’ll be counted twice. Buuut if somebody hacks my chart, that’ll also fuck everything up. This is too much. I don’t know what to do. I need to own up to my mistake. I need to ask for a new when2meet to be sent out. I need to fix this.
No, came a different voice, right as I hit ‘compose’ on a new email, subject line “hi sorry”. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone, remember? Lean into the fear.
The bolded italics were right. I had to learn to trust in the good of humanity. I had to believe that none of the people I know would be twisted enough to violate the sanctity of the unspoken when2meet code of conduct: Thou shalt not log in as somebody else and change their availability slots to start and end exactly half an hour earlier than what they submitted, thus cementing the meeting time to when they’re not actually available and leaving them to curse themselves for not double checking the times they blocked out.
I slept fitfully that night. I kept waking up, groggily refreshing when2meet calendar 7086353-8L8po to make sure nobody had hacked me yet. By dawn’s break, my availability was still set. It hadn’t moved an inch overnight. And up until the time the results were locked and the meeting time decided, my availability stayed constant. Unmessed with. I could breathe easy.
In the couple weeks that have passed, I’ve repeated the cycle a number of times. It gets easier to handle, but no less thrilling. Log in, unprotected, feel the rush of a poor life decision, then relax once a meeting time has been chosen without incident.
Another risk, another jolt, another potential crisis averted.