I have a love-hate relationship with social media [a].
Spending most of my life as a transient student, moving from one country to the next, social media was a boon that I will forever be thankful for. I used it to stay in contact with my family. There were many nights spent on unreliable internet connection just trying to tell my parents that, yes, their daughter is still alive; yes, she is eating well and yes, she promises to be home before sundown to avoid the robbers and the rapists [b].
I even met my husband through social media [c] and we experienced a long distance relationship for five months. I know some have had to do it a lot longer than we did, but it felt like time slowed to a crawl those five months and it was only made slightly less difficult because of social media, especially video calls [d].
Of course social media is instrumental in my ability to keep up with friends from the different countries I've lived in. It was because of social media that I can still have constant contact with my best-friend from high school even though we live on the opposite ends of world [e] [f].
However, this is where the hate part of the love-hate relationship I mentioned earlier makes itself known. I realized that when I chose to leave, the people I left behind tended to prioritize their circle of friends to those that stayed [g]. It's not that they don't like you anymore, they just don't have the enough time to work out time zones, distances and their free time just didn't involve you.
It hurts to scroll past posts with circle of friends that I used to be a part of, and though I try to send messages whenever I can - the burden of starting the conversations and having it fail, is starting to break my back. I've started un-following old friends on social media because I'm tired of being "seen"-zoned all the [h] time.
I suppose it's my fault, I did decide to move away; to follow dreams of countries that they couldn't understand. Why would they choose to keep in touch with someone who chose to leave them?
Yet, I think of friends that chose to stay in contact, that chose to send me pictures of wherever they are. People who chose to travel across the world to attend a wedding of a friend they haven't seen in person for years. People who aren't "too busy" to send messages, let alone call [i].
Maybe I'll just devote my time to them instead of wishing for other "friends" to contact me, huh? Maybe that's why I still use social media even though it hurts.
Because of them.
***
Footnotes:
a. Honestly, it's mostly love.
b. I had a penchant for moving to countries that most would label as "dangerous". The fact that I'm still alive probably means they weren't all that bad.
c. Can you count OKCupid as social media? Whatever, I'm going to count it anyway.
d. *flirtatious wink*
e. Hi, Ame! I know you're reading this.
f. Should I control myself from all these footnoting? Probably. Am I going to? Doubtful.
g. A week before I left, one friend, if I can call him that still, straight up told me that he was probably never going to talk to me ever again - no hard feelings because that's just how he was.
h. [insert expletive here]
i. Video calls mean the world to me. My friends must really love me if they're willing to sit through Awkward Calls with Glaiza just to see me.