On a scorching July morning in a Colorado that existed before cell phones, streaming, and apps, my friend Michelle and I slathered oil on ourselves and sprawled out on a couple of rickety aluminum lawn chairs in my tiny, unkempt backyard. This was also a time before we became concerned about sun damage, melanoma, and our mortality.
My little boombox sat in the shade on the square of concrete that was almost a patio. The spinning gears in the tape deck cranked out The Doors on cassette.
Michelle picked up the bong that sat between us, took a hit, and handed it to me. She giggled and said, “Dude. Check us out. We look like a couple of greasy goons.”
I lifted my head and scanned my skinny white legs, shimmering with fine blond hairs and grease, like a scrawny chicken ready for the oven. The oil covered my face, my hair pulled up tight in a clumsy knot. I took the bong and laughed along with her. “Oh my gawd… we do. I hope nobody sees us.”
“Just imagine,” she said, “if every guy we’ve ever had a crush on came walking into your backyard right now.”
“Oh. Fuck. I would die.”
Michelle kept going. “And each one of them was with every chick who was ever our nemesis.”
“Dude. We’d have to move so they could never find us again.”
Then we laughed, went back to our stoned sunbathing, and forgot about the whole thing. It was just young pothead shit-talking and what ifs. What if your worlds collided and people who did not belong in this moment of two friends lounging and happily looking like shit crashed the party?
That moment vanished from my memory, but recently reappeared again. It came unbidden, but not without some prompting.
As part of my ongoing efforts to minimize, I embarked on the insane task of digitizing and organizing various piles of paper fragments accumulated over my 45 years of living. I scanned photos and tossed the bulky photo albums. I’ve been transcribing and scanning my old notebooks, journals, and other written fragments. Old letters. Ticket stubs from the days before eTickets were a thing.
Putting this detritus of my life into a digitized, chronological order has been satisfying. (For those who might be interested, the most useful tool for me in accomplishing this has been the Day One app.)
Coincidentally, when I started this, a weird and sudden swarm of harassment and assholery invaded my personal Facebook account. Hacking, creeping on my public posts, sending me bizarre and pornographic messages. Then another big security breach happened. My husband deleted his account completely. I locked mine down tighter and deleted a bunch of people. I’ve started removing old posts and photos, archiving them with the paper fragments. The creeps became the nail in the coffin of my personal Facebook profile.
As I began deleting more than a decade’s worth of posts, it struck me that aside from the first couple years of Facebook, I haven’t enjoyed it. It makes me feel irritated and lonely. In spite of having plenty to do and keep me occupied and content in my own life, gazing at an endless stream of noise from friends and family leaves me feeling isolated rather than connected. While I enjoy interacting with those who I am connected with, I dislike interacting with them all at once.
I’d like to be able to sit in creaky lawn chair looking stupid while talking about inane shit with my friend Michelle. Later, I’d like to have dinner and chat with an old classmate, and maybe the next day catch up with one or two of my relatives, or maybe one of my former coworkers, or a new friend.
What I do not like is sitting in my backyard with Michelle and having our conversation interrupted by not only every guy we’ve ever had a crush on, but also a gaggle of former colleagues who surround us while holding up photos of their kids eating messy things, old classmates announcing their current hot takes on immigrants and gun control, while Aunt Louise rattles on about a new Dorito Macaroni Chicken Custard recipe and Uncle Carl screams about how he still says Merry Christmas because he’s an American, goddamn it.
My backyard is now noisy, crowded, and Uncle Carl is screaming at the girl who sat next to me in 8th grade math. I don’t know where Michelle ran off to, and some acquaintance I’ve recently met is calling Uncle Carl a bigot and holy bloody fucking hell I just wanted to make a quick comment to Michelle when all these people showed up and it turned into this whirlwind of everyone I’ve ever met talking at the same time and hurling feces all over the place.
So, I walked out of my backyard, and found that once I’d gotten away from the flurry of voices and noise, I felt less isolated. Less lonely.
While it’s supposed to keep people connected, my experience has been that Facebook actually contributed to me losing touch with those I was closest to.
The cards, letters, and personal emails vanished. In their place was the backyard shit show where no real communication occurred. This made me feel sad, and I began to miss my friends. As I spend time organizing old photos, diaries, and letters, I can see where I, too, neglected deeper connections. In this era of instant messaging, free long distance calling and FaceTime, it makes no sense. So, I occasionally reach out to them on Facebook Messenger. We exchange a few brief texts, then part ways again for several more months or another year or whatever. Or until one of us dies. Sadly, if communication isn’t happening through memes and clickbait, then for many, it doesn’t happen at all.
Now another year is ending and with that in mind, I’m making a request to anyone who is reading this. Please, before another year goes by, reach out to an old friend. Chances are, they’ll be happy to hear from you. Maybe they need to hear from you. Maybe they’re not doing as well as you think. Or, maybe they are, but you’re not.
If you enjoy spending time scrolling and posting and liking, that’s cool. You do you. But, please remember that other people don’t operate that way and might need some one-on-one time. A short time spent looking silly with one good friend makes for a better story and stronger memory than a decade’s worth of bickering and shitposting.
Have a Happy New Year. Wear plenty of sunscreen, and don’t bother arguing with Uncle Carl. Now, go call your friend.