or particularly, the threads he’d initiated. She found one from three months earlier. Fishman324: Position is likely. I’m planning to check it out. Who’s in? No one. There were no replies. There were several threads like this, all unanswered. Steph wondered if Fishman324 was someone other people merely toyed with or if there was anyone out there who thought he was as smart as she soon began to think he was. She’d learned that what she was doing was referred to as lurking, when someone regularly checks a message board but doesn’t make themselves known or contribute to the community. Occasionally, a poster would put out a call for lurkers to identify themselves. Steph wanted to answer, but it felt like emerging from the corner of the girls’ room in high school, where she could remain anonymous trying on various shades of stolen lip gloss with her best friend Amber. She liked the corner— until she met Fishman324. Fishman324: Think about on land. There’ve been times when we thought something was extinct and then years later, we discovered it wasn’t. She agreed with him, and she thought, we’re still finding new species. One day a cat walks out of the jungle, and it’s discovered. But it was probably there all along, right? For years and years. What are the chances we found the cat as soon as it arrived on earth?
81 Belardi