Social intercourse, or lack of
Friday, March 13th, 2009by Teresa Pavlinek
I don’t answer the phone. I don’t answer the door. There have been times when I’ve even ducked behind a car or crossed the street to avoid “running into” someone I know.
These quirks, as I like to call them, existed long before email, call display and social networking sites. But for a direct communication-phoebe like myself online connecting is extremely dangerous while at the same time beyond appealing.
There are days, okay maybe weeks, where I realize I don’t ever have to leave my house. I can do business through email, catch up with friends on Facebook (well, comment on their drunken party photos and annoying status updates), watch a concert on youtube, and text my family members to inform them I’m still alive. Perfect, right?
Not quite. I’ve run into some difficulty trying to sustain this disconnected disguised as connected lifestyle. The first being, the inability to communicate with people in person anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t turned into a conspiracy theory obsessed, bearded, talking to my pots and pans like they’re my army, Unabomber type … yet.
Although sometimes I think I’m only a log cabin, a crowded subway ride in rush hour and one more line up at Starbucks away.
I was on Facebook way too late one night procrastinating by marveling at how many of my high school friends have babies and go on trips to Disneyland P.S. I don’t have babies and find Disneyland creepy, when suddenly an instant message popped up from one of my Facebook “friends”.
I use the term friends very lightly as this individual and I had never actually had a conversation. We had mutual friends, respected each other’s work and maybe in another life would have been room mates.
But for now we were just two people in the middle of the night Facebook “creeping”. Yes that’s a term. He messaged me asking what I was doing up so late. I replied, “I could ask you the same question”.
We shared this … kinda flirty, kinda witty, kinda silly banter back and forth for about ten minutes. Then I wrote I should get back to work. Him too. And that was it. I forgot about it until about a month later I was walking down the street on a beautiful spring day.
The sun was shining, the birds singing, the street smells were resurfacing after months of laying still under the snow. Life was good. And then I saw him - my middle of the night Facebook friend.
Oh God. What do I say? What do I do? It was too late to duck behind a car or cross the street. He’d seen me. I smiled. He smiled back. As he got closer I started to sweat. I don’t know him! I thought. What the hell was I thinking sharing a brief online moment with him?
He was almost right in front of me. I could pretend to faint, I thought. But then what if he wanted to take me to the hospital and then found out I was faking it. That would be even weirder than it already was. We were right in front of each other.
He said, “hi”, I said “hey” and we both kept walking. Like nothing had happened. Like we hadn’t had that “real” online moment. Like we were just friends of friends. Like we didn’t know each other at all. Which we didn’t. I was shocked … and a little confused.
These new online rules of engagement are so odd. Why was it easier to “chat” through fiber optic cables than to actually exchange pleasantries face to face? I learned something that day.
Don’t ever leave the house! Okay no, but I did realize that sharing words or pictures online does not equal a personal face to face relationship. As much as we want to believe we can just replace one with the other and multi-task our lives into a neat web address we cannot.
I’ve tried to answer the phone more. Sometimes even the door. But if you see me hiding behind a car as you walk by don’t be alarmed. I’m just avoiding you.
