Everything is okay. You smile and nod politely to others. When people ask how you are, you immediately respond like great! And, how are youuu? Hoping that they will assume you are doing so great that you don’t need to talk about yourself and so eager to hear about everything that they are doing in their life. You grin and agree with everything that they are saying. But you are actually dying inside. Every word they say, you wonder do they actually care about you, or are they just trying to fill the space. You wonder if they can hear you screaming inside. Will they show their human side with me? While you’re still stuck inside your head, you wonder how you will actually survive. The pretending feels like more suffering. A heavy burden no one is willing to admit. To admit that we actually need another human being. To be heard. To be understood by another human.
Back to the endless conversation that has no depth. They ask you a question that makes you feel like death all over again. The feeling like someone suckered punch you right in the stomach and it knocks the wind out of you. You clear your throat pretending that the extra few seconds of responding back was just you trying to not choke on dry air and just needing to clear your throat. You answer their question attentively like you were dying for them to ask this question all night. You start out by saying, “well, yes…” but you really want to say, “what the fuck!” The question is your typical question. What neighborhood do you live in, or what university did you graduate from? Those types of questions that give society the right to ask but it’s just a way for people to size you up and assume what your socioeconomic status is. Once they gathered all the information, they wanted from you, they nod and walk away.
Dead inside.
Your phone vibrates. For a second, you feel hope. Maybe it’s your best friend or relative calling you to check in on you. Maybe they were just thinking of you and wanted to send you a quick text. Either way, it felt good for a second to maybe feel wanted or connected with someone. But when you look at your notification, you see a friend that you haven’t talked to in months tagged you in a photo from years ago, saying that they miss you. More dings on your phone, and so-called other friends are also responding to this photo by liking and commenting on it. It was a good memory. Maybe one of the better memories. But I wonder if we are losing human interaction when we lead with connecting only on social media platforms. Yes, a phone call is using a device to communicate but other people can’t also respond to our private phone conversation. That phone conversation or that text message is a private message and connection with another person.
Do we now need an audience now to interact with humans?
When others like and comment on a photo that you tagged a friend in, does it give you validation that the friend is “worth” having around? Someone that will bring more to the table by giving you more likes and notifications on your social medias.
The connection with humans seems forgotten. Social media seems to be the only way people are interacting with one another. Will we ever need a phone number in the future to talk to people or will our dozens of social media accounts be efficient enough to communicate with others.
Suffering in silence.
We like photos on social media to let our friends and family members know that we see them. We comment on other people’s post as a way to communicate with others. We update our Linkedin profile to show the world what we can offer. But where is the actual human connection?
Feelings can’t be show on likes through social media. Your understanding of me can’t be perceived only by my social medica accounts. Communication is not an emoji on Instagram. Communication in not a 10 second Snapchat. Communication is not a like on a photo.
The world only sees the edited photos. The posts when there’s excitement and happiness all around. You rarely see a post admitting their suffering.
For those who are honest on social media, they are immediately labeled as “crazy” or “TMI” or “oversharing.” When really, they are the ones that are human. They are admitting that this world is kind of shitty and at times, it really sucks! They don’t feel the need to edit their photos because they know who they are, and they know who their true friends are. Validation from others is not important for them. They are the ones that inspire me. The rare breed of honest humans.
At the end of the day, most humans just want to be heard, loved, and respected.
Where did the human connection go?
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