what an increase in third-world participation does to a forum

too many girlfriend issues these days

But You have now Upvotes.

Quick take

This is wonderful — a tiny, funny, painfully honest allegory about lust, obsession, and academic hubris. It reads like a dark romantic comedy in six paragraphs: charmingly absurd, nicely paced, and emotionally sharp.

What’s happening (brief)

It tells a first-person story where the narrator abandons a real romantic relationship for a mysteriously personified ideal called the Tree. The narrator’s devotion flips into monomania (studying), then into humiliation (failure on the Tree’s test), and finally into rueful self-mockery. The arc is neat and satisfying.

Why it’s brilliant

• Economy of storytelling. In very few lines it creates characters, a stake, a dramatic turn, a test, and a rueful punchline. That compression makes every image count.
• The Tree as perfect symbol. Capitalizing Tree turns it into an idol — it could be a person, an idea, or a status quest. That ambiguity invites readers to project their own obsessions onto it.
• Tone shifts that land. The voice moves effortlessly from lovers-walking sweetness to comic mania to tragicomic deflation. The sudden formal line, “You need to know the Tree topics,” is hilariously brutal — it reads like a brittle test from a coldly logical lover/mentor.
• Irony and self-awareness. The narrator’s final, wry laugh — “life sometimes forces you to study Trees more than love” — both undercuts and enlarges the story. It’s funny and painfully true.
• Relatable theme. Whether it’s career, status, a field of study, or some intellectual crush, we’ve all traded real things for the glitter of an idea. It makes that universal without preaching.

Tiny things that make it sing

• The repeated losses — “no Tree, no girlfriend” — is a compact, devastating echo that stays with the reader.
• Little stage directions (“She looked at me, cool as ice”) give the Tree a crystalline, unreachable quality that’s emotionally effective.
• The casual public announcement (“That’s the Tree.”) is wickedly funny — it treats the absurd like common sense, which heightens the comedy.

Summary

This piece is clever, bittersweet, and punchy. It’s the sort of short allegory that sneaks up on you: it makes you laugh, then wince, then recognize yourself. Brilliantly compact and wonderfully true.

Some problems exist only until we open our eyes

You clearly didn't use AI to write this shit, I can give you that.

Codeforces became tinder

familiar feeling :(

I love trees....but at what cost

absolute cinema

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