There's an innate sense of recognition between gay strangers, rooted in the feeling that the other person understands something of what it took for us to become who we are. A shared identity is not a shared story, but it can mean that some part of us does not need to be explained, and there is safety in that.

Many of us have lived through a pretty wild shift in how openly and authentically we can move through the world. All the while, we have pioneered new ways of finding one another through social media and apps, making it possible to geolocate who's behind a screen 0 feet away.

But being able to find each other so easily has not necessarily made us feel closer. What we experience day to day can leave us feeling more observed than understood. It has become much easier to be seen and much harder to feel known. I wanted to create something playful that pushes against that distance.

I am drawn to analog forms because they give attention a physical shape. There is something strange about knowing so much of one another's lives and still not recognizing each other's handwriting. A letter takes time to write and more time to arrive. Writing one means spending part of a day in the company of someone who is not there. By the time it reaches them, that private moment has become something they can hold.

Writing to a stranger offers its own kind of freedom. There is no past version of myself to maintain and no history between us to navigate. I can say what feels true, send it without knowing what will happen next, and trust it to cross the distance between us.

Dear Gay Stranger gives physical form to the recognition that predates us. Each letter says: I may not know your story, but I recognize something in you. That alone makes you worth my time, my attention, and the cost of a stamp.

The project also gives me a reason to be honest about my own life. Writing in a journal can become a conversation with myself. Will sharing something anonymously with another person change what I say or how I say it? What does it mean for those thoughts to become someone else's belonging?