When I win, we lose.

I’ve decided to hate social media.

No, really.

Not just the pointless, regurgitated memes that tell us that they feel the same way we do.

All of it.

I was standing in the bank, overheated, trying not to have an asthma attack in a mask in a line during a pandemic, and I thought about posting some hum drum comment on social media, something like, “ever stand in a bank overheating, trying not to have an asthma attack in a mask in a line during a pandemic?”

Why is it needed? What does it say?

I hate the insincere sharing.

I hate the dishonest blanket friendship, the lack of depth.

There’s nothing that can be for you, from me that comes from a picture on your wall. It’s not a letter, a phone call, it’s not even a direct message, nor a text. It’s not having a conversation.

It’s not conversation.

Not a dialogue.

You are screaming into the void, and it’s not even screaming back.

We know each other by memes.

By status updates.

We know each other by super cuts, unimportant to the actual days we are living.

Who cares about my 15-minute stint in the bank?

This is a fraudulent feeling of intimacy.

If you know me, know that I read out loud often. Know that I still mispronounce most of the words.

Because I taught myself to read young.

Because reading was my way to understand people.

Know that I never wear pants.

Because they constrict my legs.

And I hate cuddling because I don’t like things pressing against my skin.

But I want pillows on all sides.

Because I feel unbalanced if I don’t.

Know that I always drink from a straw.

Because I don’t like cold against my teeth.

But I love cold.

Except with wind.

Who cares about the outtakes?

I want to know why you forget to put lids on the toothpaste. Why your phone is never below 30%. I want to know how come you skipped breakfast, and why you enjoy morning talk shows. I want to know why you hate flossing.

I want to know what convinced you that this platform is a conversation. I want to know why you believed that.

I cannot connect about your Easter egg hunt.

I can connect about why you decorate with reds and yellows, but not blues.

Why are your curtains red?

Why do you like indie music?

How come you remember to recycle but you don’t remember to clean your car?

You can’t make it matter when you’re talking to a crowd.

You make eye contact with a member of the audience, they teach you that, but it’s only a fleeting comment in a sea of faces.

We teach each other that meaning comes from tagging names to motivation or mockery. We pretend to listen with a well-placed meme.

We can have those.

The world exists as modern, there’s no step backward.

But imagine the difference if you take a moment to send a message attached to that motivation and mockery, with that meme, if you make it private, personal. If you make it about the person, not the story you want the world to hear you tell them.

If you were really sharing. Not your inner most secrets, not every time, but a conversation that pertains to who you are speaking to. That involves responses. Carry-through. You realize you didn’t say to him what you said to her, because she didn’t say the same thing back.

Reevaluate.

Look at your memes.

Enjoy your humor, and validate your feelings about whatever strikes you then.

But know what you’re doing. Don’t call it intimacy, nor connection, nor friendship.

And the irony is?

This is a social post.

Designed to share.

And the more you feel it’s about you, the more you prove the point.