Ludic Dreams

Shit happens.

We all know that.

People grow, that happens too.

But I, ladies and gentlemen, am sentemental to a fault.

On the day that I became single (what some would call “freedom”, though that term I have problems with) after a very long, very powerful four-year relationship, I can’t remember much. I can remember hanging up a phone, and suddenly feeling my very wet face. I can recall going into a room full of guys and playing guitar hero II on the Xbox, facing the screen as they didn’t notice tears running down my face ( I was playing Woman by Wolfmother; Irony sandwich). But one thing I recall most of all is the ever-so-important changing of the guards- the omnipotent and quintessential moment, the marker in which both myself and the world acknowledge that it has been changed:

I changed my status on facebook from “In a relationship” to “Single.”

This demon, This social network, this thing; I have learned to hate.

At a moments notice, I can see a picture of her. I can see a picture of us. I can see a happy moment, a smile, some part of myself I offered her, as a child offers a pasta-picture to his parents on mothers/fathers day. I can see conversations; innocent, free, not different than the conversations that I have with others, but I can see them. I can see a technical question she poses to a forum; I yearn to answer it, but I can’t. I want to. I won’t. *

I come across pictures of us, whose tag of hers is oddly missing… I can imagine a teary evening of erasing the past on the other side of a machine I built her, an event whose very thought hopes to destroy everything I am.

Despite my outward appearence, I believe it to be quite obvious; I am not over anything. But what is more important is what mental stamp facebook has provided my generation. Book is a wonderful surname for it; it’s like a giant living picture book, an organic memoir. In it, I can look back at years of Happyness, heartache, love and loss. I can see my friends live and die by this acute application, I can see the tempo of my people inherit the script. What hurts more is when that history, that heartbeat, is seemingly swept away. This happens in reality anyway, but one very rarely carves it on a stone and yells it from a mountain.

What is worse: Looking upon the past, dying inside, thinking to yourself, “remember how great that was?”

Or: Seeing the photo’s with two faces but one tag, thinking, “I guess not.” Facebook provides spaces for memories and what should be memories, in a display of technical power and raw emotion.

Despite the pain that facebook can bring in the wee hours of the morning before you have to go to a 7:30 AM meeting, nothing compares to reality. So, I suppose I still have that going for me, as does my generation.**

-F9

*This sounds alot like stalking, but if you have seen facebook, it really isn’t; all relevant information is pretty much thrown in your face, and everything I have said here is basically mandatory reading once you sign in; you can’t not read it, the way it is set up.

** This is not supposed to be emo; it is supposed to be poignant. I won’t do many of these, But I figured if there was one way to look at social networking, it could be like this. This is more about facebook than it is my personal relations.