Social Media

Hey there imaginary baby,

So, out here they have this thing called the internet, where some people live. It's very noisy and distracting, which is a surprise given how little real content or aesthetic experiences are available there. But the rent is cheap.

It can be easy to keep track of people there, though, which has both its good sides and its bad sides. There will be people in your life about whom you care, but who for whatever reason you are unlikely to ever see again. Or at least, not see that often. It can be nice to have a way to keep tabs on those people. It's like seeing people in the school cafeteria. You don't say hi to everybody. Some special few you greet with a hug. Some people you wish would be hit by a truck. But most of them fall somewhere in between, people about whom it's nice to know that they're basically doing okay.

Lots of science has recently proven, however, that all our desire to demonstrate our essential okayness can be hugely depressing. Partly because in any given life an inevitable period of majorly Not Okay will fall. I'm not even all that old, and yet some major Not Okay has befallen me already. And people I know, too - death. Illness. Financial loss. Fear. There's bad stuff. It does occur.

But we often only want to share those bad things with people who make us feel safe enough. It's hug-level friend news, not cafeteria news. So we keep it hidden. And to those of us at cafeteria level, it looks like nothing bad is happening.

A few women I know were ambivalent around the same time I was. And now, all three of them have extant babies. Chub-faced pictures fill my feed. And for some others, the chub-faces have started to subside into kid-faces.

I think we've missed it, imaginary baby. And I don't want it getting all over the cafeteria, but it's starting to make me really sad.