time spent offline

“So, no Instagram, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Tik Tok…” I know he believes me when I say I’m not on social media; it’s just that he wants to make sure I didn’t forget to mention the Instagram account I kept for art inspo or the Facebook one I keep to stay in touch with family back home. “Nope, nothing” I say, “I have email?” I offer. We move on to more interesting topics. By now my default has become no Instagram, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Tik Tok… Not even WhatsApp—This one makes life the most inconvenient but as a woman of principles, I had to leave when Facebook acquired the platform sometime ago.

Life adjusts accordingly.

We are at our usual Friday meetup, drinking, chatting, philosophizing and theorizing; giggling like school children delighted by our brilliant ideas and opinions, delighted by the feeling that can only come from time spent in good company. I can’t recall the context but we are all engrossed, anticipating the insight that might come at any point. He’s saying something about how we shouldn’t look for solutions but rather we should look for trade-offs. It’s one of those things where although you have never heard it before, never considered it until then, it makes sense the moment it is uttered; immediately, instinctively, without a question. We both agree with him. Solution implies something is solved, he continues, but you never solve anything, you just end up with other, different problems; It’s a trade-off of problems really, he adds, not a solution. While he’s speaking, my heart begins to race a tad bit, my eyes widen and a smile spreads across my face, I get jumpy in my seat before I shriek with delight. Such things excite me: The flow of a good conversation, of learning and unlearning, all happening in real time, in reality. I add it to our ever-evolving reservoir of ideas that just make sense, that will get me through the coming days— There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

No Instagram, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Tik Tok: This is not a solution, it’s a trade-off.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she says to me after I sheepishly admitted I’m leaving the city to start my graduate studies, after she’s done berating me for not mentioning it the whole summer we spent with reckless abandonment of all responsibility and care. “I would want to post about it all over my Instagram if I were you,” she says as she traces half a circle with her cigarette smoke to emphasis her all over. I blow mine out with a smirk. For a moment I imagine how nice it would feel to have all the likes and comments pouring in to congratulate me on such accomplishment— For starting from nothing, a nobody, to possibly making something of myself. I could almost sense the dopamine rush with every ping of notification, of every like and comment. Then I remember the rest of it; The low got so low sometimes, so unbearable, it was dizzying, suffocating. In remembering, in wanting to forget, I’m grateful I get to avoid the best of the rest of the world , the highlight reels, when I feel so little, so low; worse than worthless. Right before I leave she gets everyone together for a farewell dinner and we promise to stay in touch, to never forget, to always remember: We drink to that.

Right before I graduate, we meet. “It’s open,” he shouts over the vacuum noise and I enter. “Why did you ring the bell?” he asks comically, as if I’m the stupid one, and WHO LEAVES THEIR FUCKING DOOR UNLOCKED, I want to scream. I don’t understand such ability to exist so freely, so safe and soundly, yet. Instead, a smile spreads across my face as I shove the rage deep, deep down and I settle for my trademark wit: “Where I’m from…” I say it all silly and we giggle. Bit by bit I make adjustments, I adapt. The good news is you can get used to almost anything, and that’s also the bad news, you can get used to almost anything. I know so just as well. This time it’s good news. He introduces me to his safe and sound means to exist freely and I introduce him to my reckless abandonment of all responsibility and care to exist freely, and together we have fun like you wouldn’t believe it. Shortly after, he updates his Facebook status, uploads the photo and despite myself I feel a bit guilty I can’t give him a clickable profile to go with the update, to tag the photo. To compensate, we amp up the fun, we get reckless without the need to pose, capture, post and repost. When I remember to remember where I came from, I text her photos of myself by the pool, the lake, on the bike and I caption it, “New Life, Who Dis” and I add unnecessary amount of emojis to compensate for the pang of guilt for having made it out on the other side, of survival guilt. “Biiiiiiiiitch,” her reply reads. Out of habit, he takes photos of our stupid-fun times together and AirDrops them to me whenever he remembers. Although I don’t have anywhere to post them, I save them for memory sake. With all the fun we’re having, we forget to take care of the debris piling up, up, up until it turns hazardous, then fatal: We are survived by the iCloud photos.

“I told you, don’t shit where you eat,” she’s smirking, for having anticipated accurately the consequences of my reckless pursuit in search of IRL connections. This happened recently. She’s referring to the bus driver I flirted with out of convenience, the one that gave me his number and I later realized I was not interested in. On Tinder you can unmatch— Easy, peasy. IRL, you get on the bus with your groceries on a Sunday and be faced with the same bus driver you ghosted. It’s awkward as fuck. I don’t let it bother me; I will take awkward over pathetic. The dating apps make me feel pathetic as fuck. Scrolling makes me feel pathetic as fuck. Watching other people live while ignoring my own life makes me feel pathetic as fuck. So, I recklessly, boldly, relentlessly go on searching for real humans, real life experiences; the avatars cannot compare. You ever make someone laugh so hard they snort? Name a better feeling. What is LOL!? Please. To compensate for the avatars I don’t have to scroll through, I talk to people IRL indiscriminately. You would be surprised by how many people still live in reality, welcoming the stranger to chat with, to find our common ground over small talk then safely transition into the big talk— You wouldn’t believe it, the things you hear. Sometimes it’s awkward, but I never feel pathetic for having had a chat with a real person, with more in common than I used to believe when I spent reading the avatars for hours a day.

No Instagram, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Tik Tok… It’s been worth the trade-off. 10/10, would recommend.