time spent offline

One of my favourite ways I spend time with my Gen Z sister is getting on her socials and going on memory lane. We look up people from the past, present and we gossip: It is an absolute delight. “OMG, what about so and so?” I screech and she grabs her phone from my hands to look up their profile. “Here,” she passes her phone back to me and I scroll and scroll; remembering, reminiscing, making commentaries: “Omg, I remember her when she was a tiny baby!” My sister warns me to not accidentally like photos of people we have no business remembering. I’m careful and curious. It’s fun to dig, to find out what happened to people. Lucky for my curiosity and love of gossip— casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about others— people post so much about their lives on social media for our casual entertainment.

This happens once in a while.

For the most part of my days, weeks, months— for the better part of the past six years— I have no idea about people’s lives outside of what they tell me over dinner, drinks, text, or a phone call. And after a couple of hours spent on social media— scrolling, gasping, sighing, laughing while passing her phone back and forth— I am bored of it all. So and so got married; So and so moved to a different country; So and so had a baby; So and so got a nice job; So on and so started a business; So and so bought a house, so on and so forth. Nothing new under the sun. And I wonder, what the fuck was I doing consuming this stuff all day, every day for the better part of my youth? Other people’s ordinary lives. Ordinary opinions. For years. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I that bored with my life? My only redemption is that I was young. I was only 23 when I decided to get off social media. A child making grown up decisions: I had no choice, I had to raise myself. And to this day, despite all I have accomplished in my short life— and it is a miracle I am here having the opportunity and audacity to say what I am about to say given all the hell I have endured and escaped— getting off social media remains the best accomplishment of my life.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

As far as I am concerned, in my reality, my life is great. Nothing out of the ordinary, mind you; nothing noteworthy and worth posting about on social media, but it is a great life nonetheless. This is how I feel when I go about my day to day, from my 9 to 5 to my workout classes, to drinks with friends and time spent with family; and fitting my poor writing dreams somewhere in-between. Some days are better than others, but overall it’s a wonderful life. One of my friend says to me I’m one of the few people she knows with an actually fun life, and “you don’t even post about it on social media!” I’m humbled. It takes so much effort to live in reality and I make every effort to stay tethered to people, things, and places in real life. Even then, it is an ordinary life. And if I do say so myself, in my reality, I’m a decently attractive gal. I don’t look like Beyonce or anything, mind you, but I do decently well for myself. That is until I’m scrolling through so and so’s timeline on my sister’s phone.

I feel it acutely because I’m not used to it anymore: Seeing people’s highlight reel after highlight reel after highlight reel. All of a sudden I have doubts about how great my life really is. Everyone is rich, beautiful, and talented. Everyone is out having fun all the time. Everyone seems happy and content all the time. When you see it all presented all at once on the screen you wrongly assume everyone is living their best life at all times except you; which is simply untrue. People are only posting about the highlight reels from the dinner party and not about falling asleep next to someone later that night who is starting to feel like a stranger— and you couldn’t keep your hands off each other not long ago. “Everyone has their pain,” my mom tells me, but it’s hard to remember when scrolling on social media. That we all carry our own burdens, and nobody really has it that much easier than anyone else— different demons, but demons nonetheless. I learn this from IRL conversations with random strangers and lovers. What’s the harm in enjoying yourself in-between then? And so what if your in-between is a $40 bill at the bar and theirs is a trip to Dubai? But when most of the people you come in contact with exist in reality, and all you see are people going about their mundane, ordinary lives just like you, it is easier to feel grateful for the friends that entertain you, listen to you vent, and provide advice that changes your world forever over $40 bills.

And why does it feel impossible to not feel like an ugly duckling while scrolling through social media? No matter how cute you felt doing your makeup that morning, no matter how beautiful your friends say you are. When I first got off social media, one of the first things that occurred to me was, Where did all the beautiful people go? I’m from Toronto and beauty is plenty here but without the camera angles, lighting, poses, etc. even beautiful people are just ordinarily beautiful. Do you know what I mean? You do a double take and go on with your day. In reality, even beautiful people are just people; doing the same thing as you— waiting for the train, adding fruits to their baskets, walking down the street. They don’t just exist in a perfect pose in aesthetically pleasing backgrounds. When you get off social media and you only have reality to pay attention to, these are the things you begin to notice. And you wonder, why would anyone voluntarily make themselves feel like shit about their life and their looks over highlight reels on the gram when everyone else, too, is living ordinary lives and being ordinarily beautiful in reality?