It’s 11 p.m. and my phone starts ringing, so I slam my Smokin’ Notes down and reach into my drawer, secretly pleased for a reason to stop studying. My best friend is on the other line, and I tense up a little bit as I hear the concern in her voice.
Turns out this phone call is about a guy, another jerk who led her on to the point of a “sober hang out*” and then suddenly changed his mind and never spoke to her again. She came back from winter break to find that he had a girlfriend in another state, and we spent a good 20 minutes discussing all of his horrible qualities and devising a game plan for when she happens to run into him.
“Well should I say something?” she says, and I spend a moment imaging a painful scenario where she drunkenly makes a scene and spends the rest of the evening crying in the back of a cab. I’ve been there, you’ve been there, we’ve all been there. It’s become a social norm for college kids, the good old “let’s be attached at the hip for one night/two weeks/a month and then suddenly never speak ever again.” Even if you happened to dump a bucket of water on this person’s head you both would probably pretend the other never existed. But the evil doesn’t begin with one of you deciding to cut the cord with absolutely zero explanation; it’s evil from the very beginning. Because both of you are playing a game, a game that I like to call “Who Cares Less.”
My natural response on this phone call was something that I tell all of my friends, including the quiet pep talk I give to myself in this situation. “Don’t act like it bothers you. When you see him say hi and move on. If you act like you care that gives him all the satisfaction.” I was always so sure of this fact because acting like nothing had ever happened immediately gives you the upper hand. And in a way it does, but why should it? Why does one person need to have the upper hand?
This has always been the case when it comes to relationships, but I have a feeling it’s a lot more important than it used to be. I’m not here to rant about how we need to get off our cell phones and experience the universe, but the effects of social media have most definitely weaseled their way into our most personal relationships with those we’re attracted to. Not because it distracts us from the real world, but because we crave and expect constant positive reinforcement. Instragram likes, Snapchats, Facebook comments, retweets and all of the other non-stop attention that we receive from other people makes us increasingly afraid of rejection — afraid of putting ourselves out there and really saying how we feel.
The entire point of social media is to share things about your life, but people will only share things that portray them in a positive light. Via the Internet, our lives look so happy it makes me want to barf sunshine and rainbows. That’s not reality. When we are taking the time to get to know someone new, we try to be those people that we defined ourselves as on social media. We are carefree, attractive and casual. We wait an hour to respond and only type as much as the previous text on purpose. Everything is thought out and calculated to keep us safe from embarrassment because you can’t delete a text or, god forbid, delete the words you speak out loud like you can an Instagram photo.
This idea of the upper hand isn’t a fault of our generation. No one wants to feel inferior. No one wants to be alone, but we need to re-teach ourselves to communicate with one another, even if that means saying something that’s hard to say. If you decide after getting to know someone that they aren’t for you, it’s time to articulate a reason why and save yourselves from awkward encounters. We move in parallel lines, always matching the other person’s move, making sure not to push it too far. Save the gaming for your absurd number of iPhone apps — it’s high time to break off your hookups, or whatever they’re called, the right way.
*sober hang out: verb – spending time with someone outside of a party setting.
