i can guarantee it's happened to you, whether you actually knew about it or not: the social media break up.
because, yes, we've gotten to a point where the only logical thing to do when you don't want to see or hang out with somebody anymore is to "remove and delete them from life". you have the power. you have the ability. technology is right there to embrace whatever you want to do. you can throw out people like nobody's business (and i'm waiting to see how many friends i'm losing after this blog post.... ha!)
technology has come so far and we've only grown a little.
about a month ago, i met a dude at a party and things seemed to go okay. he had a childish charm that, while i was drunk, made me laugh. and that's fine. except he was supposed to be mature. and have his life figured out. and was doing a lot of things i couldn't even begin to understand. we exchanged numbers and facebooks to plan hangs. sure, he was kind of cute. but there was something about him that just made me really uneasy and i was soon to find out what that was.
neither of us wanted things to move too quickly, so we spent many weeks texting to try to get together. he'd text me a bunch of times during the day about nothing in particular. it started to get sort of annoying and i didn't always respond. what i didn't need was another stage 5 clinger. i had enough of those encounters already in 2012 and hoped he wasn't one of them. eventually, we made plans with some mutual friends to go to an event. it was great since i was definitely not comfortable hanging out on our own yet -- there was still something about him that gave me a strange feeling.
to my horror, some other friends bailed at the last minute and i was now stuck on a double date. fuck. okay. so we walked around and looked at things. we drank some beer. he talked a lot. he also seemed really nervous. i didn't know what to think. i can't even remember a single thing we talked about. i just found him extremely dull. this was not the dude i met at that party. at the end of the evening, he ended up buying me something cute -- probably to win me back. it didn't really work but hey, that was a good effort. i left him with a hug and went to meet up with other friends to try and analyze what just happened.
so, what happened? well, besides the fact that he was boring, nervous, talked a lot, didn't really get along with any of the friends that were with us and just didn't seem comfortable being with me -- there was also just no fucking spark. no connection. i couldn't see anything in him worth going after. there were a few common interests but not nearly enough to get by. we were pretty much doomed from the start.
i just knew that he knew things between us weren't as good as they should have been after that night. i likely texted saying i had a good time even though i didn't. and i'm pretty sure he responded saying he did too. but then we never texted again. and for good reason. it wasn't until lately when i noticed we were no longer friends on facebook either. i was a little relieved. recently, i did my own social media break up and got rid of at least 30 "friends" that i haven't talked to in months or years -- or they were those stage 5 clingers/stalkers i mentioned before. i figured i may have removed him in that purge or maybe he did it to me. i guess we will never know. and really, i don't give a fuck.
sure, it's not so easy when it's somebody i might actually care about. there are a lot of those friends out there that may not feel the same way about me. and that sucks since i hold friendships quite close to me. social media has just made breaking off friendships and bad dates so much easier leaving most friends none the wiser until it's too late.
so please, i'm asking all of you to remember those manners your mommy once taught you to be polite. because i'd appreciate a reason as to why we're no longer friends. it's simple: tell me you hate the things i post on facebook. tell me you're in love with me and i don't feel the same. tell me you find me annoying. tell me i'm boring. tell me you hate the sarcastic things i say. tell me you're tired of my simpsons quotes.
just tell me something before you remove me from your life forever, okay?
because the absolute worst thing you can do to me is keep me wondering what it was that made you lose interest in me.
