Alex gave me $1000 cash after I met him on Facebook Marketplace. An hour later he asked me if he’d paid me

A few weeks ago, I signed a contract for a job in Adelaide, and my time in Melbourne is coming to a close. The city of churches is a wonderful place for the religious, and a so-so place for people in their late 20s. That said, it’s where my new employer is, so it’s time to clean out my apartment.

Some of my favourite things are from random people on Facebook Marketplace. Their junk became vital to me. You can – and will – find anything here. Want a three-seater bench from the old Jetstar terminal? Marketplace. A full-size model of a battle droid from The Phantom Menace? Marketplace. Some creepy porcelain doll that is 100 per cent cursed? Marketplace.

Marketplace can satisfy any type of person with any type of demand. There’s no performance. Just a weird chair that a nonna is selling, and an arts student who wants it.

It is also filled with some of the most fascinating people you will ever meet.

Recently, I tried to sell some memory cards for a camera I no longer own. I listed the items for $1, mentioning in the description that interested buyers should “make me an offer”. I do this because if there’s one thing people on Marketplace love more than a deal, it’s a haggle. Five minutes later after the listing went live, a man messaged me asking if the memory cards were “free”. I told him, “Nah, make me an offer. Do you have an offer?” He responded, “No, I don’t need them.” But he would have needed them if they were free?

I sold some old camera lenses to a bloke called Alex. We agreed on a fee of $1000. Alex gave me the cash, and left with a pep in his step – I feel as if this purchase made his week. I was fascinated by the amount of trust Alex had in me. He brought $1000 in cash. I could have been a murderer. I’m not. Just in case you were curious.

An hour later, Alex asked if he’d given me the money. I stared at his message for a few minutes, holding the cash in my other hand. A worse person would have said, “No, can you transfer the money?” I, on the other hand, told him he had. Alex responded five minutes later, “Oh, good. I forgot.”

These situations arose only because someone actually messaged me. On countless situations I have had to message people four or five times before they even gave me a response, which is usually something like “Sorry, sold :(”

I once complained about these people to a friend, who told me people still message her about obsolete listings. Good, innocent buyers enquire about a bookshelf she left on the kerb in February. I asked why she didn’t just delete the listings, and she said, “I know I should, but it’s such an effort.”

Has she never been on the cruel receiving end of this?

I had imagined these non-repliers as poor salespeople. I’m literally begging to take their junk, cash in hand. In what world does that make sense? It turns out they’re just good folks who lose track of time.

Marketplace is one of the last remaining networks where people are not performing or playing a role. Instagram tells us to post the most luxurious parts of our lives. LinkedIn says we must always be networking. Twitter/X exists for opinions, whether we believe them or not. On Marketplace, something as cataclysmic as a divorce is summarised as “Wood dining table. $100. Need gone ASAP.”

We spend a stupid amount of time building stories in our heads. If you go onto Marketplace right now, you’ll see hundreds of wedding dresses in every conceivable size. You won’t see the marriage. A wedding dress is never just a wedding dress. Marketplace doesn’t care. That dining table that a happy family ate dinner at every night is now going to some share house in Northcote where one-night stands will drink crap coffee at 9am.

My sentimentality comes from the fact that in the next few months, I am going to have to sell many things that occupy my home. A couch I watched movies with exes on. A Seinfeld mug. The desk I bought with my first payment from The Age. Whoever buys these things won’t understand any of that. They’ll see a desk that was once $500, listed for a fifth of that because I can’t be bothered disassembling it.

Marketplace is a network for people to rid themselves of things and start again. However, the second a stranger shows up in their rented GoGet van and takes that desk, dining table or wedding dress, it’s no longer junk. It’s someone’s new favourite piece. Someone might write the next great Australian novel at that desk. Or they might spill mi goreng on it. Whatever they do with the desk, they will not think of me. I am leaving a city I loved, and random people are arriving, one by one, to dismantle any evidence I lived there.

Roby D’Ottavi is a writer and director based in Melbourne.

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