Connective Cube

A decade ago, I realized that I would not be the person with 1,000 Facebook friends first, or if ever. All of the sudden, I go from easily ignoring the faces from my past to a nostalgia trove of connections that I could not longer forget, unless I opted out. FOMO to the max. Flows of data about any likes or desires that I put on there come back to me, thick with glasses,  beauty boxes, essential oils, insurance, design education and skin care suggestions.  Oh, and models with glasses, brunettes with glasses.

Now I deal with social media by lurking, then having fits of posting, then reading about the accomplishments of people who are, or were, part of my everyday life.  That is to say that many people are a part of my imagination, increasingly figures rather than flesh.

It says something for tangibly locking eyes and smiling at another person.

Perhaps they are part of my life because I tend to be the type of person who thinks about people far more than I interact with them. Part of this is due to proxy – after all, moving to three different cities in five years doesn’t exactly bode well for someone who tends to build friendships at a turtles pace. Wandering, floating rootlessness makes for a fantastic lurker, the perennial fly on the wall.

This doesn’t exactly enable me to get close to people quickly, or easily. Even as a kid, I was considered aloof, not open with my emotions, turbulent and shifting without cues. I almost got placed in post-Kindergarten and pre-1st grade because I was socially immature. I had a perchance for crying in the middle of class, making out with boys and girls under wooden gyms on the gravel playground, failing to learn how to skip and sticking to gallops in motor exercises, and staying  mute when I was asked questions that I had known the answer to for two years.

Teacher: What is your address?
My mind: 417 Pink Oak Drive, Tucker, GA 30030.*
*It is right there, I can see the letters and numbers flashing. I can’t really remember the color.
My voice: Muurrmrurururm

Teacher: Katy, you skip by alternating legs, back and forth. You keep galloping, and not switching legs. Left to right, right to left.
My body: Gallop on the left foot first, and then get confused at the switch. Maybe trip.
My mind: How hard is it to switch legs, dweeb?

I still find myself in situations like this, that same mind and body kerkuffles. All it means is I make terrible first impressions. Or surface impressions.