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| Calypso |
So there I was, trying to get into Calypso’s FB page to
delete it. Why does my cat have a FB
page? Exactly. Why does my cat have a FB page?
Anyway, I couldn’t remember the password, so
requested a new one, but Yahoo told me Calypso’s email account didn’t
exist. Sensible folk.
That seemed the end of the matter, except that a FB log-in
page popped up. Ever the fat, dumb and
happy soul that I am, I hit ‘enter’ and expected to be inside Calypso’s page.
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| Wow, FB! |
Instead, there it was, my deactivated human FB account with
a Christmas profile photo. In reality, I’d
logged onto a website, but psychologically, I’d
opened a door that’d been closed for three months. I was alone in a secret
place without anyone knowing it.
I walked round the virtual room, picked up dusty objects, read
letters from people who’d been daily present in my life until I shut this door,
a door they’d disappeared behind . I
looked through my friends list. All good
people. Very few who were still active
in my life.
 |
| Real friends. |
And so I defriended at will, leaving only people who’d stuck
with me outside FB, plus a few I couldn’t quite let go of yet, until only
thirteen friends stayed.
Nev, on Catfish,
says if a profile doesn’t have 100 followers, it’s not real. But that’s not what I felt when I looked at
those 13 names, my friendly coven.
That list seemed very real to me.
These were people to whom I mattered, or who at the very least, mattered
to me.
 |
| Giving w/o reciprocity. |
It’s taken a long time to understand that people I admire
and enjoy but who don’t reciprocate, aren’t really my friends, regardless how
much they accept of what I offer them.
And obviously, based on the fact that among those 13 names are people
who stayed behind the FB door, I haven’t fully learned that lesson. But 13 names is a start.
In terms of society, that’s a 20th century lesson, one that maybe won’t
survive the 21st century.
There’s no qualitative message in that.
People adapt, connect, make reality out of new things, discard the
reality of the past. Me, I’m definitely
a 20th century realist. An
anachronism? Perhaps. But life only works when you pay attention to
what’s true for you.
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| Holding onto what's true. |
