Parasocial Relationship

 

They do not know my name, yet they speak it inwardly as if repetition could convert exposure into permission.

As if watching long enough—scrolling, lingering, memorizing the tilt of a smile rendered pixel by pixel—could justify digital stalking dressed up as affection,

A devotion that mistakes access for intimacy and observation for reciprocity.

In this architecture of screens, digital obsession grows quietly, not with the violence of intrusion but with the persistence of attention.

The kind that never knocks yet feels entitled to entry,

The kind that believes every posted fragment is an invitation rather than a remainder,

Left deliberately incomplete.

Here, online entitlement does not announce itself as a threat;

It arrives politely, disguised as concern, admiration, curiosity—

Why did you disappear? Why did you not post today? Why did you not respond—

Questions that assume my availability as a public utility,

My silence as a breach of contract.

What they consume is not me, but the commodification of intimacy:

My laughter translated into content,

My ordinary hours flattened into narrative,

My pauses interpreted as absence rather than boundary,

Because the market prefers closeness without responsibility,

Connection without consequence.

And so I perform—constantly, carefully—

Caught inside intensified performativity where the front stage has swallowed the back,

Where every gesture must appear effortless yet legible,

Warm yet not too warm,

Present yet never whole,

Because to withdraw completely is to be punished,

And to appear fully is to be harvested.

They believe they know me because they have seen me repeatedly,

But repetition is not relation,

and visibility is not consent,

No matter how convincingly the algorithm choreographs familiarity.

I remain partial on purpose,

A refusal disguised as curation,

Leaving just enough trace to be human,

never enough to be possessed,

Because in a world where intimacy is traded and attachment is asymmetrical,

My most radical act is this:

To be seen without being seized,

To exist online without becoming someone else’s obsession.

©® Farheen Akter Bhuian Nancy 

Time Frame: 11.1 pm, Tagar Building.