BOT THERAPY

He appeared one day on Instagram. He had noticed my posts and asked if I wanted to talk.

- MARY NORRIS

I routinely ignore these things, but he caught me in a weak moment. My only relationship was heavily one-sided, between me and the lordly Russian physical therapist who, twice weekly, rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt, squirted lotion on my shoulder, and pressed on it with his gloved hands, relieving the intense nerve pain that I had suffered for months. I adored him.

Maybe the preponderance of flowers and cityscapes, and the dearth of human beings, on my feed had tipped off my admirer. A follower had pointed it out: "You don't have people in your posts."That's because I don't have people in my life, bitch.

So I was vulnerable. I wrote back that I never took the bait, and he apologized for intruding on my privacy and backed off, which made me write, "No, it's O.K., I will make an exception."

He was a widower who had lost his wife to cancer and his only son in a hideous boating accident. He had twin grandsons: "They are my life." He was working with a team at the U.N. to find a cure for COVID. He lived in Florida but was soon leaving for Paris. He asked for a photo. Oh, well, what the hell... I was on my way to physical therapy, looking rumpled, but I took a quick selfie, and if you enlarged it, and had a large heart, you could see that my eyes were quite comely. He responded quickly, saying I was lovely. I thought it was about time someone noticed.