Just delete them
We never message each other because this isn’t about connection. It’s about keeping tabs.
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She’s climbing Machu Picchu. She’s throwing her graduation cap in the air. She’s walking the High Line. She’s meeting up with the girls for a weekend away.
You used to make me miserable.
Most of the time I scroll past her and feel nothing. Sometimes I even like her pictures. Sometimes she likes mine. A random peppering — not consistent liking as a true friend would. This has been our only form of interaction for the past decade, the two of us knocking likes back and forth in the slowest, most boring game of parasocial tennis imaginable. We never message each other because this isn’t about connection. It’s about keeping tabs.
Oh look, she moved to Australia.
There are other times, though, when I scroll past her and the memory bubbles up. I’m eleven years old and crying myself to sleep because of what she said to me in the bathroom in school. I remember hating everything about myself, the searing insecurity. I let the pain in for a split second and then scroll on.
She was at their wedding? They must still be friends.
If it weren’t for this app, her facial features wouldn’t be as crisp in my memory. I would know little about her life. And yet I have accepted this as a normal thing to do: follow the highlight reel of someone that I don’t even like. I told myself that I can do this because I’m older now. Water under the bridge. We were young.
Does she even remember?
Is this what we’re going to keep doing? Sporadically liking one other's photos until we are elderly women? Meanwhile, the 24/7 opportunity to actually speak sits cold and unused. To state the obvious: this person shouldn’t be in my space. Social media can be a wonderful tool to keep up with people that you once shared great times with. On the flip side, it weirdly compels us to retain every single “connection” for the sake of… what, exactly?
Just delete them.
The person who brings up negative memories. The person who hate-follows you, clocking in to watch every story but never reacting. The person who stole your clothes but denied it. The person you were obsessed with, but are pretty sure barely remembers you. The person who makes you feel insecure about posting something that you know your true friends will celebrate.
Just delete them.
You’re not being petty. That’s the insidiousness of social media in a nutshell: all of the interactions are so microscopic, so blasé, that unfollowing, ghosting or removing people feels like a massive overreaction.
I don’t buy it. When justified, that’s exactly what you should be doing, because guess what? You already did it in real life.
If I wouldn’t invite you to my house, then you’re not welcome in my online space either. What astrologers call a Saturn Return, I call turning 30 and simply not having the energy to carry dead weight anymore.
Just delete them.
In the year 2000 I was 18 and working at a candy store in the mall. All the mall people in our area became friends and one day this guy from a store across from mine came in to say "Hey, I just wanted to let you know today is my last day and I'm probably moving so I wanted to say bye and I hope you have a great life."
We said our goodbyes and this interaction stuck with me because that's what life was like before adding every person you talk to to your social media. It's not necessary. I do hope he's having a great life.
I love how you take the little things (or not so little things but the things we often don't talk about/habitually do without thinking) and exploring them... 'Just' deleting people is harder than it sounds isn't it.... But we so often choose to break our own hearts repeatedly instead.