“It’s ““ it’s
basically just a wave, or a poke, even, nowadays,” sophomore Katy Ruiz
chokes through stifled sobs. “I didn’t realize that this last little shred of
e-happiness I had has been bastardized, just like the rest.”
The distraught Ruiz
refers to her recent revelation that Facebook “happy birthday” wishes are
perhaps more casual than she had been treating them; she realized that
approximately 64 of her 73 birthday wall posts came from people uncomfortable
talking to her in person.
She pulls crumpled pieces
of paper from a jacket pocket ““ printed-out copies of her past birthday wishes,
previously taped to her actual walls. “I guess I’ll be leaving these on my
internet wall from now on.”
“This just”¦ Isn’t the
first time this has happened,” Ruiz sulks, enumerating her various painful
internet-themed social adjustments.
“RSVPs on a Facebook
event mean less than nothing. I’ve thrown out so many extra party hats. And I
thought my roommate was married for three years ““ turns out he’s her gay best
friend! Who’d have known.”
One of her oldest and
most painful betrayals comes with the way people express amusement. “Writing
“haha’ doesn’t mean they actually laughed! And “lol?’ More like lying out loud.”
After further
investigation, Ruiz found that rofl very rarely means rofl (“especially at a
keyboard”¦ dumb, dumb,” she mutters to herself), and roflcopter involves any
sort of copter even less often.
“When I write lol, or
happy birthday, I mean it, and I assume other people do too,” she says. “And it
turns out everyone has been faking it. How am I supposed to validate my
friendships and excellent sense of humor now??”
Her above-average
emotional attachment to e-representations of human interaction cut the deepest
when she realized not everyone “pokes” the way she did – monogamously. “Turns
out everyone these days just pokes wildly in any direction, any and everybody,”
she seethes bitterly. “Just poking around with whoever, whenever. Disgusting.”
The disappointment
and confusion has left Ruiz with one last refuge. “I do trust emoticons, but”¦ I
just don’t know. I think we’ll find some way to ruin those, too.”
🙁
