Posting the old reviews is going well, and I almost shed a tear when I read the lovely comment Stellar left on the PSU: Final Hurrah post. All this old stuff is making me quite nostalgic, I’m going back in time, further and further.
Facebook can be quite the spying tool if used correctly. I’ve been checking out old friends, seeing how they’ve grown up. Most of them have kids now. I’ve been checking out old flames and past infatuations, seeing how much they’ve changed, seeing how they’ve lost that sparkle in their eyes that fuelled my desire for them. And they’ve mostly got fat. Hey, I’ve put on weight since then too, so I don’t mean that as an insult. Honest.
I first looked for them a few years ago when I first signed up to Facebook. There were fewer of them on there then, obviously slow on the uptake to the digital revolution of social networking. Still, becoming their “friends” on there somehow seemed false – surely a “friend” is someone you would stop and talk to if you saw on the street? I removed them, forgot about them, just as they had done to me all those years ago. I still remember my 18th Birthday, in the midst of a mental breakdown, my supposed “Best Friend” left me drunk, sitting in the middle of the road, crying my eyes out for no reason, while he went off with his new friends. I was so alone back then, so confused. I didn’t understand what was happening to me – I was a kid! Mental breakdowns happen to people who are in and out of psychiatric hospitals, not to “normal people” like you or I. At the time I never realised what was happening, but thinking back now, it’s so obvious.
On Friday afternoon I must have spent about two hours going through their friends, their friend’s friends, their friend’s friend’s friends. It was an endless list of people who abandoned me when I needed them most. I don’t think they knew I needed them and their support, I don’t think I knew I needed them and their support; they just followed their own selfish paths. Looking at their photographs, seeing old social groups mixed with new ones, what I then knew as different circles of friends mixed together in the here and now, everyone seemingly knowing one another, getting on with each other, having a whale of a time – without me. To be honest, I don’t care. I may have needed them then, but I’m happy now. The experiences I faced alone made me who I am today, and thinking about it, I may even be a bit grateful that they forgot about me.
Hey, this post makes me seem a bit creepy, like some slimy guy eavesdropping on people’s lives. I’m just putting the ghosts of the past to rest.
Honest.
