You were resistant at first. You didn’t know a hashtag from a screensaver or a flame thrower for that matter. For you a browser is a gal at Bloomie’s. Hashtag? For all you knew it could be red flannel with a poached egg served on top. (WHAT was the etymology of that?) For you twitters and tweets are soundtracks for Easter egg hunts.
So you set up a decoy page first under an alias with an invented address and an oh-so-brief and deceptive “about” [Employer :The Chicken Coop; Education: nothing listed; Family: none listed; Relationship status: It’s complicated. ] , and an identity theft photo that came with your new Dooney & Bourke knock-off wallet. You didn’t post a thing on your timeline -- or rather your son didn’t. He set it up, of course. You don’t even know how to type. Exporting a digital photo terrifies you, the very idea. I mean, WHERE are you sending it? China? They already own enough of us. Better to leave well enough alone. [No photo, obviously, on your “FB site integrity” violation page.]
And timeline, I mean really: you are born, you live, you die. And I suppose that Status Symbol has a whole new meaning. Anyway…
Alias page posted, it seemed harmless enough. No internet nosy-bodies squirreling around in your birdfeeder, no email porn-o-copia, no invasion of the body snatchers. It was downright pacific. Unflappable almost. Nearly aloof. Facebook did not care that you were there at all, albeit under an assumed identity. You incognita; nonetheless it bothered simulacrum you, virtual you, to be thus ignored. Where was all the touted social networking. You felt like the last girl asked to dance, the last kid picked for the kickball team.
Your toe still damp from its dip in the kiddie pool of mii, you were, as your son sensed ready for the cannonball into real virtuality. He set up your facepage, photo-shopping your profile picture from a group picture at a dance you chaperoned, setting up your “aboutness,” your groups, cover shots of your book jackets. Your Apps, Pages, Friends, Interests, Your Newsfeed which – it turned out – had nothing to do with news.
The first week was fine, maybe even exciting. You had over one-hundred friends, rewarding since off-page you were hermetically sealed, a recluse -- former students you had long wondered about, boarding school classmates [I wonder whatever became of…]. All were doing fine, apparently – the students now publishing their own books; the former classmates running bookstores or cash registers, businesses or marathons. But still alive and shimmering out there in this parallel world.
What you had not foreseen – that it might even be comforting for you who live alone, having lived alone for two decades now -- before you retire for the night, checking in with the friends who had friended you. Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May./ Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight./Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
Goodnight, my virtual friends once known or new. Good night.
And you did not foresee laughing at the cute kitty vid clips or the dumb jokes (You have a lot of spunk; I hate spunk. I save lives each day because there are people who need to be shot, and I don’t shoot ‘em. You don’t have to be crazy to post on facebook, but it helps.) And you did not foresee checking in compulsively throughout the day (although this was predictable – remember the ebay episode that lasted a month?) to read the literary commentary, the brags and boasts (My book just won the One of the Many You’ve Never Heard of Awards) and the baby pix of couples you’ve never met, and the envy photos of places you will never visit – the Mayan peninsula, the Amalfi coast – only in imagination and facebook, the next best thing to being there. They are all members of your family, your facebook family.
You picture them all, like you, lucubrating by yellow lamplight, posting their recipes and garden diaries, and book reviews. And you even find yourself with laptop company during the election, exchanging posts and ripostes as the happy returns come in, staying up WAY too late. Heck, you could even pop corn and put your fuzzy slippers up on the coffee table. It’s that cozy.
You feel less alone than you have felt in two decades. Jeezum Crow, you think, Facebook saved my life.
Which is not to say that you are naïve. You notice the vertical ads on the recto margin. Dog poop bags? Really? Is there a big demand for dog poop bags. And enticements for UGGS, and you’ve never understood UGGS, ugg short for ugly? Ugg a synonym for UGH? Hey, look at me I have Wookiees on my feet, and they are UG-lee. Or this ad copy: Find your next hot date. Or an invitation to join OurTime.com a euphemism for Geezer.com. Don’t even THINK about it.
But you can overlook all that for the morning giggle of van Gogh’s self-portrait: Hey, I just met you and this is crazy – but here’s my ear. (Call me, but I won’t hear you.)
And you notice that you are starting to get competitive – like trying to amass the most signatures in your high school yearbook. Some facebook people have over a thousand friends, two, three. You haven’t batted a thousand. Mark Zuckerberg himself celebrated head counts once he hit a million. It must be true; it’s documented in The Social Network.
So you who have always been old school about parts of speech, who have never used impact or reference as a verb, begin friending people, begin friending people indiscriminately. Sure, why not? What the hey? The more the merrier. Until you befriend that young woman you didn’t know and thinking more cautiously about it in the morning, decide to check out her page, her page on which she is splayed and displayed in a skimpy garter belt, a garter belt skimpy even for a skimpy garter belt. You scurry back to your facebook page for some quickie how-to research—Unfriend. Unfriend. Really, who knew that Madams were running electronic brothels on Facebook. Craig’s List, sure but facebook, not friendly old facebook, not family member facebook. Goodnight, John boy. Goodnight, Joan girl.
Then the next development . Apparently some members of your FB family mistake the site for Match.com. You receive come-ons, proposals, invitations. They make you queasy.
The foreign national who asked, So Joan, are you Really looking for a man? (WHO said I was looking for a man?) And the evangelical who saw something in your smile and thought that you could save him. (Save him? You can’t even save receipts for your tax accountant.) And the one who pitched hooking up with this gem – Age is only a number. Tell that to the post-menopausal ten pounds you can’t shed. You do not need another virtual boyfriend. To date they (and there are hundreds) have all been virtual albeit actual. And these FB nutty cheeseballs may even be virtual-counterfeit, wannabe romancers. [Catfish alert.] Heck, they could be women; they could be anybody, posting ersatz pages as you yourself did. They could be garter belt girl. You switch your profile picture and post one of your holy terrier, your smoochy pooch, Peeve, yes, your pet Peeve. And you snap, you bristle, you crackle. You don’t mean to be Unfriendly, but UNfriend, UNfriend.
You were nearing seven-hundred; now you begin subtracting. As you open your FB page to delete, you begin to notice that Facebook is getting a tad personal. How are you feeling, Joan?
Fine thank you, Facebook, and you?
Or this obvious variant – How are you doing, Joan?
Definitely in the piedmont of creepy here, rappelling up the face to the peak where you teeter on the verge of ontological breakdown – like the first time a car warned you to back off , security alert, or your prudish ipad’s voice command scolded you for cursing, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” “There’s no need for profanity.”
But Facebook persists. How’s it going, Joan?
A little looser. Hipster Facebook? Metro-textual Facebook.
It might be time to pull the plug, shut the page down. Then you flash on Hal 9000: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
What if Facebook moves from peevish-persistent to threatening and vengeful? What if Facebook starts singing Daisy?
Who wouldn’t be peevish. I mean, Facebook. It’s a face. It’s a book. It’s an IPO. What kind of life is that. Worse than virtual.
Once virtual meant actual. Then it meant almost. She is a virtual genius. And now? What does virtual mean now? Are you virtual in FB-land or here and now is THIS virtual you? Which you is the avatar? Anxiety trending. Oh my stars and little fishies.
You black out your laptop screen. You shutter your ipad. You lock all the doors and shiver under your comforter.
By dawn, as is often the case, you have recovered some perspective. The espresso splutters. The milk froths. You settle into the lap of your laptop and click.
Facebook greets you, “What’s up, Joan?” Now what, home boy Facebook? ‘sup? Hiphop Facebook? Sup yo, yoself.
You are about to reconsider, shut the book on Facebook, when you note the post. Paul. Paul Swann. You squint. Really. The photo is as small as an inspection sticker on a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. But, yep, that’s Paul all right. Teeny tiny Paul, but Paul none-the-less. A little grayer – but still Paul. Is this the Joan who used to live in…?
Yes, you scream. Yes, yes, yes.
Twenty years ago before you started teaching, you dated this man, ten years your junior. How many times have you wondered about him. Whatever became of………
Paul you know is actual. Paul really exists or at least existed. Gentle Paul. Handsome Paul. Paul of the Dancing Bear eyes, fixed and always surprised.
Quickly the exchanges move from posts to messaging. (Another noun having an identity crisis.)
He messages: I always loved you.
He messages: I never stopped.
He messages: I never really deserved you.
He messages: How is your darling son?
You swoon for a week. Gatsby was right after all – love AND the past were recoverable. God bless you, Facebook.
You message: Where have you been and doing what for twenty years?
Facebook asks, What’s happening, Joan?
You should have taken this as a techno-omen (technomen?). Far out, hippie Facebook. Far fucking out, you pathetic stoner.
He messages: I didn’t really kidnap that girl. I served time, but it was eventually overturned although I cannot come see you because I cannot return to the state of __________________. I can’t drive either. My license was revoked due to the anxiety medication. Somebody torched my apartment, so I am living with my mother in Montreal. She has cancer. I cannot work – anxiety – but I inherited some money when my dad died in the fire. You might remember my dog, Dog. Dog died in the fire too…..
It messages on from there. Marshall McLuhan, how little did you suspect.
The fog comes/ on little Schrodinger’s cat feet.
Either/and. Either/or. He was guilty. He wasn’t guilty. He was convicted. He was exonerated. The paramour’s paradox – at what point does reality become one or the other. A whole new meaning to entanglement.
Does Schrodinger’s cat have nine lives?
Paul of the Dancing Bear eyes is a virtual criminal.
He messages: I think that we should get together. Check out my photos on facebook. I dyed my hair. I am too young to look old.
We are all too young to look old.
Hal 9000: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
At the touch of a button, Paul, goodbye.
And Facebook, farewell.
Someone is following me? What exactly, Facebook, do you mean by that? Now I have a follower? A cyber-stalker in the thickets of postings and threads, all these unraveling threads. Time to evade Facebook, to slip away.
Hal 9000: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
What’s up, Joan. Don’t you see, Joan? My stock is rebounding. I saved your life. To me you are the duplicate. You owe me.
You want to shut it down; you know you should shut it down, but it is such a lovely procrastination tool, to wander sideways when you should be working like now, like writing this story, but instead you can read, : haha im walking down a hill thinking about how much I don’t like myself….. OR: Not everything that pops into your head needs to be shared on Facebook.
You watch the stream go by, updating your page. Post after post after post.
How the heck do you deactivate the page? UNfriend Facebook.. UNfriend. UNfriend.
The stream of posts flows on and on.
Turn it off. Turn it off. But it goes on and on.
Dave’s last line to Mission Control: The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God – it’s full of stars.
FB going on forever. This I, this loneliness, this onlyness, all – a mobius feedback loop. In cyberspace we all exist forever.