12:30 a.m.
Doom scrolling our lives away. Not looking each other in the eyeballs. And we know it. We’re honest about it. I just went out with this person. They asked what I’m doing when I get home. I told them the truth. Rolling my thumb, Instagram, laugh, send reels. Send a reel to the exact person you just spoke to in the face.
Why can’t I just look at you in the retina and have a good time, talk, interact, do what we’re supposed to do as humans, and create our own version of that gratification.
Earned.
The motion. Right hand. Thumb up and down, up and down. Point o three percent of your brain to read whatever’s on the screen. If it’s not intellectual you read it. If it is, maybe you use point o five percent to keep going. Brain rot. You’re an idiot. You’re an idiot. You’re just a freaking idiot.
Maybe you know it while you’re doing it. You do it anyway. I do it anyway because it’s good. It’s fun. These algorithms know you. They know what makes you tick, what makes you laugh, what makes you smile, what makes you cry, what makes you emotional, what makes you think, what makes you not think. They just know.
The next day
If you’re an avid YouTube watcher, I think your subscriptions are the real you. Nobody talks about what they watch on YouTube. That’s the vault. The downtime. And the curation isn’t the platform’s. It’s yours. You subscribed. You liked. You swiped. It’s not that it knows you. It’s that you built it.
Something that isn’t human knows me better than any human does. And I accepted it. I didn’t even fight it.
So is the problem that we keep going back to the things that know us well?
Isn’t that what a partner should be?
Not just someone who knows me. Someone who can predict me. Curate for me. And the work is the choosing. I have to go out. The community, the gym, the bar, the restaurant. I have to show up somewhere so somebody can meet me. Not to be noticed. Noticed is anybody. Noticed I can get from a stranger. I show up as myself and hope she’s out there doing the same. But she has to choose me too. Instagram doesn’t choose me. There’s no thought behind it other than keep him here, keep him clicking. She makes me dinner and it’s not even that good and I love it anyway, because she thought about me.
There might be a person who knows me like that. One or two in my inner circle who actually pay attention. And half the time I don’t know what they held onto until it comes up years later, out of nowhere. And I don’t hold anything against anyone. They’ve got their own shit going on. But when somebody does remember, it gets me every time.
Maybe that’s what I’m looking forward to. Having that person who knows me. I’m laughing at myself as I say it…
“Knowing me like Instagram. Knowing me like YouTube.”
My inner thoughts, desires, feelings.
And I don’t just want that done for me. I want to do it. I want to be the one curating.
The whole platform I’m making fun of is the thing I’m looking for in a person.
Almost.
Instagram has every reel I’ve ever watched, down to the second. It never forgets a thing.
She’ll forget the errands. She won’t forget me.
I’m not looking for an Instagram wife. I’m looking for a real wife.