Colin: "...well, you're just cut from a different cloth than most"
Aly: "That's weird. I don't get that. I'm not that special or anything.
Why is it so hard for people to be... y'know. Real people?"
Why is it so hard for people to be... y'know. Real people?"
I was talking with a friend of mine last night and we were in one of those relationship discussions where she wanted to know my opinion on this and I was listening while she told me what she wanted and expected, the things she was afraid of, and the best parts of what they had so far.
Very sweet to hear.
Totally not something you want my opinion on, however. For starters, everybody knows I'm a jaded motherfucker. A cynic in a world full of ignorant optimism. My rocky past has brought me to where I am now and while it sucks and there are lots of bad memories that give me nightmares, I accept it and embrace it. Because it gives me knowledge and insight into the world around me and allows me to see things and people for what they really are. Most of the time. If my own personal feelings start getting caught up into it, if I lose my objectivity, then it's game on. Once my stupid super-intense emotional state turns on my brain tends to get told to shut up. Stupid hormones. Then again, I guess everybody does that. Maybe my problem is that I'm aware that I'm not thinking clearly, but I can't bring myself to care. And that drives me nuts.
This topic of conversation left me thinking about relationships as a whole, not just romantic ones. Friendships, parent/child relationships, work relationships... Y'know. The whole caboodle. All of them. And I started thinking about how all of this technology that "brings us together" has completely changed our lives. And not just in the little ways. It's cool being able to talk to my friends that live in the city now that I'm out here in the boonies, I'm pumped about that. But take a step back and think about it. For those of you that can remember a time before facebook and text messaging... You passed notes in class and pissed your mom off by running the battery down in the cordless phone every night. If someone didn't answer their phone you left a message and hoped they'd call you back, you didn't blow up their phones with text messages or creep their facebook page and try and find them. You actually had to interact with people. They got to see/hear the real you. I may be able to fake being in a good mood, but you can usually see it in my face when I'm pissed about something. Glass face girl right here.
But with text message and facebooking and skyping and all that stuff... The world now only sees what you want them to see. The best parts of you. All the pictures that I post on facebook? Yeah, it takes me like half an hour to get ONE good picture. I take like 15 before I get a good one. So you see what I want you to see, I don't post the ones where I thought I was making a cute face but it really looks like I stabbed myself in the foot.
When we talk to people they are only showing us the parts of themselves that they want us to see. That is a generalization that can be made in any circumstance. We let people see our crunchy cookie outside, because nobody wants to see the cream filling. All of this mass communication technology puts even more barriers between us and the real world; it adds an extra layer of cookie.
This, my friends, is why people have such a hard time being real anymore. Because why should we have to be real? We'll meet someone, spend time with them, but then spend 80% of our time communicating with them through some sort of robot box. So why worry about being real? You can say "I love you" through a screen but then you miss the look they get in their eyes or being able to feel their heart speed up or watching the blush creep up around their cheeks because you just made their stomach drop to their toes.
Conversely, you can say "I don't want to be with you anymore" through a screen and then you don't have to see the color leave their face or the tears come into their eyes. You don't have to deal with what happens next because you aren't there.
Which, of course, all of the above is total bullshit. These emotions were given to us so that we could experience them in real life, with all the whistles and bells and bullshit that goes with it. We live in such an impersonal world right now, and it's only getting worse.
Yep. I'm an asshole.
But I keep it real.
when i said,
when i said i'd take you
i meant--
i meant as is.
courtesy; ani.difranco.
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