Accept
published: 2010-12-16She had resisted going on facebook. The thought of it tired her. Facebook was all about the past. Life was now. She hadn’t gone through therapy to get over the past only to welcome it right back into her life with a click of the mouse, had she?
Eventually though, she had a small peek. What was facebook? She dipped her toe into this pool of impressions, faces, names, and how one person lead to the next and the next. Names she’d forgotten, friends she’d never had but now asked to befriend her. Hell, why not? Perhaps she could find something there. Confirmation that she had done okay, maybe. Excitement?
No it couldn’t have been for the excitement. Even though she had to admit that as of late she found herself looking back more often, than to the future. Perhaps the past wasn’t so bad after all. Perhaps it held more future in it, than now did.
And so she plunged. Soon she came across people on real life who said, “you’re really active on facebook aren’t you?” Active? She didn’t really think she was. Sure, she routinely glanced over the friends online-list everyday, hoping to find someone to chat with. To whom she could be smart and witty and sexy and, yes, exciting.
Usually the initial spark of reconnecting with lost friends and past lovers wore off quite quickly. It entailed a day or so of intense messaging back and forth. And that was that. Real life was now. Shit happens.
Yet she couldn’t stop, because there was always someone new but old hidden away in someone’s list to get temporarily fascinated by all over again. And vice versa.
Then one day, a specific friend request came her way. It was a request from her very first boyfriend. How old had she been? 12? He had been a bad boy. Rough on the edges. He bought her perfume and gave her bracelets, things she had not yet even considered could be presents and made her feel awfully grown-up. He gave her a glimpse of the future. Which was what now, for him? Should she accept his friend request and look at all his photos? His info? Read that he was married and interested in men and women? That he was living exactly where he used to live, the very same city? Did she really want to know he had three children? Did she really want to see what the passing of time had done to his handsome face? In the profile picture that came with the request she hardly recognized him, that’s how swollen his bloated face was. He was wearing sunglasses. A gold necklace.
I should leave facebook, she thought, right now. Protect what little there is left of the untarnished past. But she clicked accept.
I should leave facebook, right now. And Twitter, and Skype, and LinkedIn. I should close my laptop and store it away in a cupboard in the attic…
except I don’t have an attic.