A few weeks ago, being the unofficial “event coordinator” of my group of friends, I got to planning some of our summer adventures beginning with an expensive surf and turn dinner for my sister’s birthday at the end of April. Since then there’s been a trip to D.C. to visit the National African American Museum of History and Culture and a simple movie and dinner date at my best friend’s request to celebrate her 31st birthday. Spending so much time together has allowed me the opportunity to affirm a few behaviors my BFF has been exhibiting for the past year or so to determine if I’m just being a petty friend or if they really are as annoying as they appear. Annoying behavior number one? Her conflicting relationship with social media.
Whether we were standing in front of an authentic Jackson 5 costume from their 1971 performance at the London Palladium or watching the opening credits of the latest installation of Alien on opening weekend, I would always look over to see my friend with her head in her phone telling her Facebook friends exactly where we were, what we were doing and the great time we were having. The only catch was I felt that “great time” was a lie if she was referring to anything but scrolling through multiple social media feeds which was what she spent most of our outings doing.
“If anyone was trying to rob my house, they’d know exactly when to do it because old girl stays tagging me in every move we make throughout our travels,” I texted my sister after viewing a caption that read, “Living the good life,” no less than five minutes after my friend’s Chilean sea bass had been served in the 5 star restaurant we were seated in. I love social media as much as anyone else, and I enjoy sharing my experiences of travel and fun with my friends and followers BUT I think it’s important to actually HAVE the experiences first before you start posting about them.
Sharing is caring is cool if you don’t necessarily care what others think, but it does make one question, “Then why are you sharing it? The truth is social media has grown so immensely because a small piece of each of us cares what others think, wants accolades, wants attention and wants to be accepted and liked. The problem begins when you want to be accepted for being someone that wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a wi-fi signal.
When I came across the NY Mag post, “When You Love Your Friend But Hate Her Social Media Presence” I knew I had to add to the conversation by documenting my own experience. Author Hayley Phalen vents about a similar situation that led to her eventually ghosting a friend because her staged profile pics of love and romance became “insufferable”. She also uses a few other folks’ stories of how social media gradually destroyed real life friendships because of how dramatically different friends can appear when they’re in person vs. when they’re posting:
“As her friend, I’m faced with this uncomfortable conundrum of questioning whether the real-life her — the one I love and connect with — is the fake, or the one on Instagram is who she really is, or at the very least, who she really wants to be. The discrepancy between the two is sort of just … uncomfortable.”
It was a reflection of how I felt in my own friendship. Here was the roommate I had since college who held my hand while I got my nipples pierced and one of the first visitors I had after my daughter was born when I was rocking a fresh set of sutures from a c-section. In a year’s time she had went from being quiet (but honest at least when there was liquor being served) to posting vague captions about how men ain’t ish over Keisha Cole song lyrics only to answer, “We’re good,” whenever I asked her in person how things were with the guys she was seeing. “You do realize I can see the s**t you post?” I would question in my head. It made me feel like I wasn’t being met half way. Here I was being authentic about all the good, bad and ugly in my life from hating my job to barely having sex with hubby since my baby girl was born while my BFF went out of her way to maintain a perfect appearance with me only to be transparent to people she would’ve never known existed if not for Mark Zuckerberg.
In Phalen’s article, a few people comment that with all of the connections that social media has afforded our generation, we just may be sacrificing our integrity to make them:
“…when there’s a disconnect between the person I know and the person mugging for that selfie or purporting to love something I’m pretty sure they don’t (and if you’re true friends, you know the difference), it leaves me feeling a mixture of disappointed and embarrassed.”
If you think about it social media has a way of making us all a little more obnoxious than we actually might be. And before anyone begins a comment with the word “hater” anyway it, the truth is anyone who isn’t in love with your social media presence isn’t necessarily hating. It could be that some folks really are obnoxious, even if it only shows through a status update. It has a way of highlighting what you prioritize and think is worth sharing, even if others don’t necessarily agree. Phalen shares:
“We all know people aren’t one-dimensional, but thanks to the ubiquity of social media we now have to contend with just how disparate those dimensions might be.”
If a friend was having a particularly self-confident day where her hair is laid and her face is more beat than a Quest Love set you might cheer her on as she holds he head high getting numbers and stopping traffic for a day. Now you have to be subjected to a thousand selfies, an Urban Decay tutorial, a random tweeted quote about “real beauty” and a SnapChat video of her driving and singing to Beyonce’s “Flawless”. It’s a lot and social media is making it harder and harder to enjoy things from movie spoilers to the quirks in your close friend’s personalities.
It’s a lesson that I learned in shortly after turning thirty. I began to be a tad bit more guarded about my thoughts, feelings and relationships. When it came to certain experiences in my life, I started to feel a need to protect them. I didn’t want experiences like my first trip to Toronto or my newborn daughter giggling in her sleep at just anyone’s disposal. I didn’t give a damn if the girl I studied with for my college freshman “Population Problems” course knew that Charlie Puth’s “One Call Away” makes me get emotional about motherhood. And most importantly, all the people I wanted to share my random thoughts and epic adventures with were usually right beside me while I was having them. I no longer felt the urgency to give all 308 friends I shared shallow connections with the play by play of my adulthood. I’ll still share a few pics of our first trip as a family to the zoo or use a status to throw subliminal shade at an in-law, but for if anyone wants to subscribe to my random musings for entertainment they can follow Madamenoire, and not my personal Facebook page.
Still, it seems my BFF hasn’t gotten the memo and it’s starting to make me look at her differently. I feel like she’s slowly being absorbed by a culture more concerned with looking like they’re having a good time more than actually having one. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel slighted at the fact the she seems more comfortable sharing her feelings with Muhammed in Bangladesh who friend requested her two weeks ago, than with her best friend she’s known for years. Social media has a way of making you feel close to people who you’re actually the most distanced from, and I’m not sure that’s always a good thing especially when one of those people is yourself.
As I enter this next phase of my life I feel a need to get to know myself a little better and I find it’s easier to do without the alert on my phone going off for every like or new follower. While I still enjoy social media I do miss not being so plugged in to people’s every thought or action. I’ve liked what I’ve learned about some folks who feel comforted to be themselves by the distance social media can provide. For others I just find myself scrolling by and thinking, “Please STFU and stop trying to prove how lit your life is.” But as Phelan points out, our reactions to what folks’ post say as much about us as what they’re posting says about them:
“Social media is a digital maze of fun-house mirrors, a hall of distorted images; it may reflect certain truths about a person, but you won’t know if you can trust them until you glimpse the real-live person behind the reflection. It also might reveal more about ourselves than we care to admit: how quick we are to judge, for instance, or how easily we buy into an oversimplified version of someone, how ungenerous we are with our likes.”
There’s more to friendship than a selfie in front of a perfect sunset and a check-in to a dream vacation. There’s the guy whose lap I almost fell into when the Greyhound bus threw on the brakes on my way to the bathroom. There’s being lost together in a new city despite Google maps and directions from the locals. There’s a shared look of shade because we know our waiter is drunk but we’re going to tip him anyway because he hunted down sweet and sour sauce for our chicken sandwiches. There are things about friendship that a Snapchat could never capture. Because the fact is once I felt that social media was making me dislike some of the very people I’ve shared meals with, been kicked out of clubs with and stopped in customs with, I knew that I had to unfollow them on Facebook so I could continue to ride for them in real life.
Toya Sharee is a Health Resource Specialist who has a passion for helping young women build their self-esteem and make well-informed choices about their sexual health. She also advocates for women’s reproductive rights and blogs about everything from beauty to love and relationships. Follow her on Twitter @TheTrueTSharee or visit her blog, Bullets and Blessings.
