3:47 AM. Your phone lights up. "You up?" Three words. Zero context. Maximum chaos. This is not a question. This is a mission statement. A declaration of.... on your sleep schedule. A notification that someone, somewhere, has decided their loneliness is more urgent than your REM cycle. The "you up?" text is a Nigerian institution. It arrives only when the sender has exhausted all other options. They've scrolled through their entire contact list. They've considered their ex and wisely moved on. They've reached the bottom of their own thoughts and found you there, buried under better choices. And the timing! Never 9 PM. Never during reasonable hours. Always 2 AM. Always 3 AM. Always that hour when judgment has left the building and vulnerability is doing security. Your response options are limited: Option A: "I'm up." (Translation: I was sleeping but your text woke me and now I'm pretending I was already awake because I have no self-respect.) Option B: "Can't sleep." (Translation: I was sleeping fine until you texted and now I'm invested in where this goes.) Option C: No response. (Translation: I have self-respect. I will regret this tomorrow.) The conversation that follows is never substantial. It's "how was your day" at 3 AM. It's "what are you doing" when the answer is obviously "texting you at 3 AM." It's circling around the real question, which is "can I come over" or "do you still like me" or "I'm drunk and you're familiar." But we participate. Because 3 AM honesty hits different. Because the person texting at 3 AM is the same person who won't text at 3 PM. Because "you up?" is the closest some people get to "I miss you." Who is your most frequent 3 AM texter? And have you ever sent the "you up?" yourself? Confess.
