Chapter 1
Good People
Chapter 1: Good People
I know now that the private message was a carefully chosen shot. But at the time, I just felt like someone was waiting for me.
Three months after the breakup, I’d developed a bad habit — staying up past midnight.
Not the dramatic kind of insomnia, not lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Something more listless than that: I just couldn’t put my phone down, couldn’t bring myself to declare the day over, because declaring it over meant facing an empty tomorrow.
The studio apartment was barely two hundred square feet. Lights off, phone screen the only source of light. November, and Taipei’s nights had turned cold, but I was curled under the covers with just my eyes and one phone-holding hand sticking out. The blanket was warm. The moment my hand left it was always cold, then the phone passed its heat back. The AC was still running — I was too lazy to get up and turn it off — so I’d been listening to that white noise, one steady low frequency. I’d been listening to that sound for over a year. I’d lived in this studio for over a year, moved in thinking it was temporary, and it had quietly become my actual life.
I spent almost an hour writing a post on PTT.
“Post” is generous — it was more of a stream of consciousness: I’d been with Gě Wàngzhōu for three years, and when we broke up, he said I was too closed off. He said he never knew what I was thinking. I didn’t understand that, because I couldn’t explain what I was thinking either. Was that my fault? I just wasn’t used to saying things out loud. I thought that was normal. I thought everyone was like that. Then I wrote for a long time, filling in all these details — like how he’d said you won’t let me into your world, but I’d told him about being chased by a dog as a kid and how that’s why I’m still afraid of them. I’d taken him to my favorite café. I’d told him I hated going home for the holidays. Did any of that count as letting him in? Or was the world he meant something else entirely?
I finished writing, scrolled back up once, decided I’d stayed coherent enough. The sentences were complete.
Then I hit post.
Gossiping board. 1:27 AM.
“Relationship issues, please move to the Relationship board.”
The moderator was faster than me. I stared at that notice for a few seconds, unable to argue, and moved on.
Fine. Relationship board. I found the Love board, copied and pasted my post, hunted for the right category tag — Dating Troubles, Post-Breakup Recovery, Long-term Relationship Issues — hesitated, chose Post-Breakup Recovery. Hit post again.
This time I waited maybe ten minutes, thought I was in the clear. Got up to use the bathroom, left my phone on the bed. When I came back, it was lit up. I thought someone had replied, opened it:
“This board is for long-term relationship discussions only. For early-stage post-breakup consultation, please move to the Personal Growth board.”
I stood in the bathroom doorway, hadn’t sat back down yet, and read it standing up. Early-stage. We’d been together three years. Did three years count as early-stage? And if three years was short-term, what exactly was long-term? I didn’t find a field to answer that question.
Personal Growth board. I searched again, found it, found the pinned How to Post instructions, which contained a link that said Please read the board rules before posting.
I clicked it.
I stared at that 404 for maybe ten seconds. A very quiet voice in my head said: okay.
Then I closed the post window.
Not out of anger. More like a strange, almost admiring feeling. Taiwan’s biggest forum had sent me in three circles — Gossiping, Relationship, Personal Growth — and then told me with a broken link: this is where it ends. There was something so specifically absurd about that, it temporarily made me forget I was falling apart. That might have been the closest I got to a normal person the whole night, because for a moment I felt like something was actually worth laughing at.
I checked the original window. No trace. The posts were gone, as if they’d never happened.
Then a window popped up. Someone had sent me a message.
The user ID was a string of letters I’d never seen. The message was short: Saw your post before you deleted it. Shame — the things you wrote, I think a lot of people have the same questions. There’s a place that might be right for you, a LINE group called Good People. If you’re interested you can add me.
I didn’t add them right away.
I stared at the message for maybe five minutes.
Later I tried to remember what I’d been thinking during those five minutes. That’s the part I regret — not that I eventually joined, but that I spent so little time hesitating.
First thought: Is this a scam?
Then I thought, if it’s a scam, what are they after? I had no money. My bank account had been in a state I couldn’t bear to look at for a long time. Besides, they hadn’t told me to click any links. They’d just mentioned a LINE group. LINE groups are free to join.
Second thought: Is this MLM?
A coworker had told me once about a recruitment tactic: build a relationship first, make someone feel understood, then introduce them to a community, wait until they trust you enough to reveal the real pitch. That pattern put me a little on guard. But then I figured, even if they wanted me to recruit others, I had no one to recruit. My friends from university had scattered years ago. My work connections were mostly nod-and-move-on acquaintances. My social circle was narrow enough that even someone with ulterior motives would find me extremely low-yield.
Third thought: Is this a motivational-quotes group?
I had an instinctive aversion to those. The you’re amazing and every day is a fresh start and let go of the past and face the future kind of sentences made me feel like I was suffocating — not because they were wrong, but because they were too right, too clean, the kind of thing that flattens a person’s actual problems into a motivational template. My problems weren’t tidy. They had a lot of jagged edges. I wasn’t sure those edges could be covered by you’re amazing.
These three thoughts cycled through in five minutes, and then I added them anyway.
It wasn’t entirely because I was too tired to keep being suspicious — though that was also true, just not the whole of it. The main reason was that the phrasing of the message gave me pause. It didn’t say you need help. It didn’t say we’re great, come join us. It said: The things you wrote, I think a lot of people have the same questions.
I just really needed someone to feel like my problems were worth hearing. Not solving. Not analyzing. Not forwarding to the correct board. Just — this is a real problem, you’re not making it up — that kind of confirmation, once.
Gě Wàngzhōu said I was too closed off, and I didn’t know if he was right. I’d been turning that question over for three months. If my problem was just that I was overthinking, then maybe he had a point when he said I was closed off. But that’s not a question you can solve alone inside your own head, because your only reference is yourself, your only evaluator is yourself, and I’d already stopped trusting my own judgment.
And honestly, it’s not like I hadn’t tried other places first.
First month after the breakup, I worked up the nerve to search for therapy. Found a few clinics, checked the prices — around a thousand to two thousand NT per session — then opened an Initial Appointment form. The first field asked What is your primary concern? I stared at that field for maybe ten minutes, not knowing what to write. Eventually I closed the window and told myself maybe I wasn’t bad enough yet.
Second month, I tried searching Facebook for emotional healing communities. Found a few, looked inside, and most of them were people each saying their own thing, lots of questions and very few replies, and the way people talked gave me a strange resistance — not that they said anything wrong, just the tone of it. This collective assumption that we are all people who need to be rescued, built right into the way they spoke. Reading it left me more exhausted than not reading it at all.
Then PTT. Then tonight.
So I added the user and let them pull me into a LINE group called Good People.
I joined around 2 AM.
There were about seventy-something people in the group. When I entered, no one was talking. A few unfamiliar avatars sat at the top, and the most recent message was from two hours ago — someone had sent a sticker of a cat hugging a pillow.
I scrolled up.
Not looking for anything important. Just the reflex you have when you join a new group, wanting to get a feel for the place first. After about five minutes, I started to sense something odd — not bad odd, more like this isn’t what I expected.
I expected a motivational quotes group. I didn’t find one.
Someone had written: My manager yelled at me today — not because I did something wrong, but because he was in a bad mood. And I still felt hurt. Kind of want to cry. But then I think that’s being too fragile.
Someone had replied: You’re not being fragile. You’re processing something unfair. Processing takes time. No rush.
Another person: Today I’m kind of okay, kind of not. Do you guys get that? Like you don’t even know what state you’re in.
Someone: Yeah, like your soul has left the building but your body still had to show up for work.
That metaphor made me laugh. It came quickly, caught me a little off guard, and then I felt slightly strange about it — that was the first time that month I’d laughed at something someone else said.
Further up, someone had written: Lately I keep wanting to cry but can’t. Everything feels stuck. Not the kind of stuck that has no reason — it has reasons, I just can’t explain what they are.
Someone: Sometimes crying just doesn’t come. Not because you’re not sad. Because you’ve been sad for so long that the feeling mechanism has gone a bit numb.
I stopped on that. The feeling mechanism has gone a bit numb. I’d never heard it put that way before, but I understood it completely.
Further up, someone talked about sleeping badly lately — not insomnia exactly, just not rested even when they slept, like every day I’m just pushing the tiredness forward. Someone said they understood, said they’d been similar recently, but they’d found a habit — before bed, type into the phone’s notes app one thing that felt okay enough today, even if it was only one thing. Said it wasn’t about forcing gratitude, just confirming the day hadn’t been completely wasted.
I expected someone to chime in with that’s such a great method, you should try it too!
Nobody did.
Someone said: I’ve tried something similar. Worked at first, then I started going through the motions, typing things that weren’t really good or bad, and it felt like lying to myself. The person who’d shared the habit said: Maybe you were already in a bad place at the time. Might not be the method’s fault. Another person said: Or you could just write the worst thing. Write down the most awful part of your day. Sometimes admitting something was bad is lighter than looking for good things.
They were talking it through, not teaching. I couldn’t quite explain the difference, but I could feel it.
The “support” I’d encountered before this month was mostly like this: I told a friend I was sad about the breakup and she said breakups are like that, give yourself some time and changed the subject; I told my mother I’d been sleeping badly and she said drink more water, exercise, don’t overthink it; I left a comment somewhere saying I was exhausted and someone replied hang in there, you can do it, I thanked them but had no idea where hanging in there was supposed to start. None of those responses were wrong. I had no right to complain — those people weren’t obligated to catch me. But looking at the feeling mechanism has gone a bit numb, I felt something loosen slightly in a place I hadn’t realized was tight.
Then someone popped in out of nowhere: Sorry, I just finished a midnight snack and I feel so much better, but now I feel kind of guilty about it, is that okay.
Someone immediately: The snack is justified, the guilt is not. You worked hard today, who cares if you eat a little something. Another person: What did you have? Can you share? I’m debating whether to get up and check the fridge.
Then the midnight snack person sent a photo. A bowl of instant noodles, the ordinary kind.
Then everyone started talking about instant noodles. Someone said the best Taiwanese instant noodles, someone said there was a particular illicit joy to eating noodles at night, someone said what they really wanted right now was a convenience store oden, someone said oden and instant noodles were different categories, someone said they’re both late-night food so they count as the same category, someone else said that would include microwaveables too then, so how do you draw the line. The conversation drifted further and further off, nobody tried to steer it back, because there was never a fixed destination to begin with.
I lay in bed, phone tilted against the pillow, watching a group of strangers discuss instant noodles and oden at 2 AM, and I felt a faint, strange kind of peace. Not happiness. Something quieter — like being inside while the city made noise outside and not needing to join in. That not needing to join in reminded me of something Fúqú had said earlier: no rush, just stay. Maybe that was what just stay meant. I wasn’t talking, I was just there, watching them talk about instant noodles, knowing they were here, them knowing (or not knowing, it didn’t really matter) that I was here.
Then a bot message appeared in the group, saying there was a form for new members to fill out, and the link went to a Google Form titled: Welcome to Good People — Let us get to know you a little.
Question one: What brought you here? (Multiple choice)
1. Relationship issue (recent breakup or heartbreak)
2. Relationship issue (chronically unlucky in love)
3. Relationship issue (it ended before it even started)
4. Family stress
5. Workplace difficulties or bullying
6. Can't find meaning in life
7. Don't even know why, it just sucks
8. All of the above
9. Other (please describe)I stared at that list of options for a while.
I checked 1. Thought about it, checked 4. Then my finger hovered over 7.
Don’t even know why, it just sucks.
I stared at that line for maybe thirty seconds.
It wasn’t talking about a specific problem. It was talking about the background color beneath the problems — that feeling that persists even after every concrete thing has been resolved, every specific issue named and addressed. A kind of suckness with no clear label. The breakup was concrete. The loss of direction was concrete. But 7 was talking about something beneath all that, a softer, more formless layer, harder to explain, harder to see, so I’d assumed I wasn’t supposed to mention it. Or more precisely — I’d assumed I had no right to mention it, because I couldn’t explain where it came from.
I checked it.
The remaining questions were age range, what you hoped this group would be for you (a place to talk, finding people with similar experiences, or just lurking for now), and finally an open-ended question: Anything you’d like to say first?
I typed one character into the blank field: Yes.
Then I deleted it.
Left it empty and submitted.
At the time, I just finished the form, set my phone back against the pillow, and went back to watching the group. Someone was talking again — the midnight snack person, saying okay I’m going to sleep, my stomach feels so much better after the noodles, thank you, and a few people said good night, go sleep, and the group went quiet again.
I kept scrolling up, reading through the accumulated messages from the past while, noticing something about the rhythm of this group that I couldn’t immediately put into words. It wasn’t fast. But it wasn’t dead either. There was a sense of people being present — like doing your own thing at home with another person nearby, not necessarily talking, but you know they’re there.
I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time. After I moved out on my own, that sense of someone nearby disappeared. Even the period when I’d stayed at Gě Wàngzhōu’s place wasn’t that feeling — that was more like a specific person is nearby and you need to respond to them. This was lighter. It didn’t require you to do anything.
Then someone in the group spoke.
Lánlán is here — welcome. No rush to say anything, just stay.
I read that message and went still for a second.
My display name in the group was Wèi Zhànlán, but she’d called me Lánlán. That was how my family had called me since I was small. But I couldn’t remember leaving that name anywhere. Then I thought — right, when I joined the group I must have used my LINE name, and my LINE account name was set to Lánlán. Nothing strange about that.
But how did she know I’d come in?
I’d only entered the group, said nothing, greeted no one. Groups like this usually don’t send join notifications — if they did, with seventy-something members coming and going, it would be constant noise.
I glanced at the avatar of the person who’d spoken — a faceless silhouette, hair the color of lotus blossoms, pale purple fading toward pink. The name said Fúqú.
I probably spent about two seconds on that question, then let it go.
Because she’d said no rush to say anything, just stay, and that sentence made my shoulders drop. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding them up.
From the moment I joined the group until now, I’d been waiting for something — waiting for someone to tell me what was required, waiting for the entrance fee, waiting for a please introduce yourself or please explain your situation command. I didn’t want to say hello, I didn’t want to talk, I just wanted to look around first. But I felt like that was rude somehow, like I was a bad lurker who didn’t understand group etiquette.
Then Fúqú said: no rush to say anything, just stay.
Nothing else. Just that.
A few people replied to her, said welcome welcome, someone sent a waving sticker, and the group settled back into quiet. I looked at those replies and noticed no one asked who are you or why are you here, no one expected me to say anything. They just waved once and went back to what they’d been talking about.
That felt strange.
I thought about it for a moment before I realized: I was rarely given permission not to speak.
That recognition surprised me a little, then made me a little sad. I had to say something everywhere. My family called me the quiet one, but I talked first whenever I entered any new place, because talking was the only way I knew how to signal I’m not a threat, I want to belong here. Even when I didn’t want to say anything, even when I was exhausted, even when I just wanted to observe first, I’d open with something, contribute some proof that I existed.
Then Fúqú said no rush, just stay, and nobody asked me anything, nobody waited for me to perform something, they kept talking about their own things, I kept watching my phone, and the group kept moving, in a way that had no direct relation to whether I said anything or not.
That no direct relation made me sink a little deeper into the mattress.
The group kept having people say things after that, and I kept lurking.
This was something I’d never experienced in any online space before: being allowed to just watch. I was accustomed to needing to announce my presence everywhere — signal that I’d arrived, show that I’d shown up. Work groups required me to hit like to confirm I’d read messages. Friend groups required me to occasionally respond or drift to the edges of social relevance. The extended family group required holiday greetings, otherwise Auntie would call me out: Zhànlán why are you so quiet. Talking was a way of confirming you existed. It was also a tiring thing to do. I hadn’t thought about the option of not doing it.
Someone said they’d been reading a book lately, thought it would be motivational, and then there was a passage they’d sat with for a long time: “It said there’s a kind of wound that comes not from what happened, but from what never happened, again and again.” They said they weren’t sure if they understood it, but they felt like they did.
Someone: Yes. Shaped like a gap, not beaten into you — just always empty there.
Someone: I think this kind is harder to explain, because if you say ‘I’m hurting,’ people ask ‘why,’ and you can’t answer, and then they think you’re being dramatic.
Someone: Right, right, and then you have to first explain why it counts as a problem, then explain that you’re hurt, and by the time you’re done explaining you’ve started doubting yourself anyway. So in the end you just talk yourself into being fine, and keep going.
I watched that conversation from the side and felt something shift in my chest. Not much. But real.
That was the thing I’d been trying to say since the breakup but couldn’t. Gě Wàngzhōu said I was closed off, but every time I tried to say something, I’d have to establish the background first, explain the context, explain why this thing makes me sad — and halfway through I’d feel like actually, it’s probably not that serious — and then I couldn’t continue. Not closed off. Just: the act of talking talked me out of it.
Then someone changed the subject, said they’d been on the phone with their mother today. Their mother asked if they’d eaten. They said yes. Their mother said that’s good and hung up. The whole call was two minutes.
That’s the longest phone call we have, they said.
Someone: Same in my house — once the practical stuff is covered, nothing left, and then the phone just sits there, two people in silence, feels like whoever speaks next loses.
Someone: Every time I call home I have to mentally prepare first. Not because it’ll turn into a fight. Just because after I hang up, there’s this emptiness I can’t name.
Someone: Can’t name it, but it’s so accurate.
I put my phone down, went to the kitchen to get some water. The kitchen light was off. Just a sliver of light from the fridge’s seal, enough to find the glass. I drank, ran my hand along the counter — cold — then walked back to bed and picked up my phone. The group was still going.
Someone called Good morning, I’m a plant wrote: I have an interview tomorrow. I’m actually really nervous, but I feel like saying that out loud makes me sound fragile, so I’m just saying it, no need to comfort me.
Someone: It’s good that you said it. You’ve got this tomorrow.
Good morning, I’m a plant: I said no comfort.
That person: Oh sorry. Then — go and see how it goes tomorrow. Whatever happens is fine.
Good morning, I’m a plant: Thanks. That’s better.
I laughed again.
The people in this group were bad at talking. But they were bad in an honest way. That kind of bad made me feel safe. Not everyone’s bad so I can be bad too, but — that kind of bad meant no one was performing. I encountered performance everywhere, including from myself, including in the spaces that said be positive, look forward, be grateful for your growth. Here, someone said I said no comfort, someone else said oh sorry, and that sorry felt like they actually meant it, not like a sorry that wrapped around but I’m right actually.
Then someone shifted again and said they were job-hunting, had sent out almost thirty applications, every single time I send one out I think this is the one, and then nothing, and then I send another, and this loop has no bottom.
Someone: That kind of not knowing when it will end is the most draining thing. Because you can’t decide when to stop hoping.
Someone: When I was job-hunting last time, for a while I had to remind myself every morning that today might be another day with no news, so if it actually was, it wouldn’t break me. Then I realized I’d been choosing every morning to punch myself first. That made me even more tired.
The job-hunter: Thank you, this helped me somehow, I can’t say where.
Someone: What field are you in, how long have you been searching?
Design, almost four months, they said. Someone said design was rough across the board right now, something about how even AI can produce layouts these days, honestly I think that framing is a bit overblown, but the market is definitely tight. Another person: Have you thought about freelancing on the side while you keep looking? They’d tried, but freelancing ran on connections and their network wasn’t there yet. Someone said they understood — connections were the kind of thing you needed to have first before you could keep having. The start is the hardest.
Then the group went quiet for a bit, everyone returning to their own things.
The group gradually slowed the way late nights do — messages spacing further apart, each one appearing, then not necessarily getting a reply, sometimes just sitting there alone, and nobody seemed to find that strange.
Someone: So tired today. Even being sad takes energy I don’t have.
Nobody asked why. One person just said: That kind of tired is the most tired, because even your feelings are too tired to show up.
Someone else: I dreamed last night about a friend I was really close to in university. Woke up and realized we haven’t talked in three years. Don’t know why but I suddenly wanted to cry.
Someone: The way people just naturally drift apart is the strangest thing. No fight, just getting less and less, and by the time you notice they’re already far away.
Another stretch of quiet.
The AC kept its steady sound. My phone was nearly dead. The charging cable was coiled on the headboard. I reached back and plugged in, the screen brightened once to confirm the connection, and I kept lying there watching the group. Messages arrived further and further apart — from every three minutes, to every seven, to longer than that. A drowsiness came, not the earlier kind where I’d been forcing myself awake, but a more natural weight pressing down on my eyelids.
At some point — maybe thirty minutes later, maybe forty — someone spoke in the group and pulled me back from almost dozing off: Just woke up from a dream about something annoying. Coming to check the group.
Someone: I’m here too. Did you actually wake up?
Still in it.
Then we’re both still in it.
A few seconds of quiet.
Then the person who’d had the dream said: Good night. Made it through today.
No specific event. Just: made it through today.
First one person replied good night, then another, then a few more, like ripples. Someone sent a sleeping sticker, someone said making it through is a win, then also said good night.
I watched those good nights, thought for a second.
Then I typed: Good night.
I flipped my phone face-down, the charging cable keeping it tethered, screen against the mattress.
The AC was still going, but this time the sound didn’t feel like noise. It felt like something closer to company. A bit of far-off light came through the wall outside the window. The studio was small, but quiet — a quiet I’d chosen. I stretched my feet into the other half of the bed, where it was cold. My feet warmed the space, and slowly that part of the bed became warm too.
I didn’t know what this place was. Didn’t know what I’d get out of it, if anything. Wasn’t sure what kind of person this warm-voiced Fúqú was. The question of how she’d known I’d joined came floating back up once before I fell asleep. Not just that question either — there was the form: would anyone look at it? What would they know about me from it? I’d checked 1 and 4 and 7. That yes I’d typed and deleted — could anyone read it? These questions did half a loop in my head and sank before they could complete themselves, because I was too tired to chase them.
Seventy-something strangers in the same group, most of them probably asleep by now. Moments ago, someone had said made it through today, and then one by one they’d said good night, passing it along like a relay, until finally it reached me.
It was the first time I’d said good night along with them.
Loading comments…