THIS WOMAN LIVES IN MY PHONE NOW...

To be clear, I did not choose her. I want to be clear about that.

I was scrolling. Minding my business. A recipe, a dog, someone organizing their baking supplies in a way that briefly convinced me my entire life could be fixed with better containers. Normal, harmless, aimless scrolling — and then, eight seconds. I watched eight seconds of a woman explaining her morning routine. She wakes up at 4:47 a.m. She has six children. She lives in rural Montana. Her name, on the internet, is MamaBearBlossomLife.

Eight seconds.

That's all it took for the algorithm to decide we were meant for each other.

Within hours, Blossom was everywhere. In my phone while my coffee brewed, at the red light, before bed — still talking, now about something called intentional hydration. The algorithm was not suggesting her anymore. It had decided. We were meant to be together.

So, here is what I now know about this woman I have never met: She just had her seventh baby, a surprise, she says, and they're moving!! Her husband, Cody, built their new kitchen with his bare hands. She had a difficult week because a water pipe broke and two kids have the flu, but she's ok. She's doing a gut reset. She's entering a soft era. She's choosing joy this season.

I did not ask for any of this information. It was delivered to me, repeatedly, by software that decided, based on eight seconds of weak judgment at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday, that this is content I require.

Meanwhile I haven't called my best friend in two weeks, but whatever. And if someone asked me what my neighbor does for a living I would have to say I genuinely don't know, but Blossom is cutting out seed oils and it seems to be helping!

The truly unhinged part is what happens next. You start to care. Not because you want to, but because you've been drip-fed information about a stranger for so long that your brain has quietly filed her under people I know. One afternoon, waiting for an elevator, I caught myself thinking: I hope Blossom and Cody figure it out! I do not know these people. Cody has never been in my elevator. And yet here we are, the three of us, working through it together.

"I love you guys so much," she says, her voice raspy but strong. "And I feel like I just need to be really honest with you right now about my journey with... mild arm lipo."

I watch. Of course I watch. The algorithm has spent weeks building this relationship on my behalf and apparently I live here now — in Blossom's phone, same as she lives in mine. I have seen her cry in a car, reorganize a freezer, and review cast iron skillets with the gravity of someone delivering test results. I have watched this woman more than I have watched my own children this week, and my children are in my house.

If she stopped posting tomorrow, I might notice . Nothing dramatic — just a small, quiet "huh, haven't heard from Blossom in a while." The same mild concern I might feel about an old friend who's gone quiet, except that Blossom is not my friend, has never been my friend, and is currently in Montana recovering from mild arm lipo while Cody, presumably, builds something.

That's what eight seconds bought. That's what the algorithm did, with eight seconds, without asking.

Somewhere out there a woman is living her life, nursing her seventh baby, waiting for Cody to put down the power tool, completely unaware that I exist. And yet several times a day she appears in my phone like an overfamiliar acquaintance with a lot going on.

"Hey guys! Quick life update—"

Watch til the end, it says.

And I do. I mean, how can I not?!