A discreet proposal
The other week I met up with a friend for tea. “What have you been up to?’” I asked in between sips. I hadn’t seen her in ages. From what I know she got married, moved to London and was trying to have a baby. However, the crucial in-betweens remained a mystery.
“Well, I went around Italy for the summer. It was nuts!” she gargled her words as she spoke. “Check Facebook, it’s all there.”
After I explained that I was not on Facebook or Twitter, she tried to grasp how to begin telling me about her summer adventure. After a few minutes of tentative strokes of conversation peppered mildly with noted restaurants, luxurious hotels and some boutiques unique to the destination, she gave up and asked me what was happening with me. The ensuing conversation proved to be stolid in nature. It seemed that somewhere, between the primitive Friendster to the up-to-the-second Twitter, people have indeed forgotten the art of catching up. It’s like they are wildcatters to a social bubble… that pops.
I’m sure she would have loved to tell me about the new friends she made when she got lost in the countryside. Or the charming boutique that sold a flotilla of various kinds of olive oil. Perhaps the celebrity she saw eyeing something luscious in Bulgari. All these details lost in the hundreds of photos selectively chosen for the world to see in Facebook.
After the era of the sex tape comes the era of information porn. I mean, there is something seriously disturbing about knowing what your officemate is doing every second of the day. She may be sitting next to you, but you can see, from Twitter, that she’s actually secretly painting her nails with last season’s Chanel Particuliere while at her desk pretending to work. She may take photos of her officemates and, in the off chance, your head may just be bobbing in one of those shots seen by her cousins in San Francisco and her boyfriend at home (who is hopefully not painting his nails, too).
Times are indeed changing. For me, it was a total statement to get off of Fecebook (yes, that’s a good typo) and start learning the joys of being an enigma. Seriously, I’m a big believer of you are what you wear. I admit at the zenith of my Facebook/Twitter days I was also loving the Herve Leger bandage dress a little too much. Match that with the conspicuous Birkin or Chanel Coco bag. Not together, of course. While we’re on the subject, please don’t ever wear big bags with little dresses. My cousin Audrey rolled her eyes at this dazzling combo, after seeing so much of it here in Manila. We get the 24/7 thing but there are certain things that should remain in the sunlight and some under the twinkling of the stars.
Anyway, back to TMI, we also see the proliferation of teenagers writing memoirs. Seriously: the only teenagers who merit
this right are Anne Frank and Drew Barrymore. In my postponed writing course in Boston, one of the classes was called “Intro to Memoirs.” It was to be my favorite class. I was, after all, in the thick of my three-year struggle of writing mine. My mom heard me recite my outline and promptly said, “No one is going to marry you. “
There is something validating about being published. God knows how I’ve stripteased myself in this very column. We learn, and strive to share our views without my mother having to pop a Valium.
Look at the Kardashians. I mean, it is entertaining but how do you really see them as role models when they attempt to spread mayonnaise on their vajayjays, draw a shotgun wedding, deal with a boyfriend with rage issues and make a porn video? Yet they’re raking it in. With clothes, fragrances and appearance fees, you know they and their lower ranks have struck a nerve in the zeitgeist. I mean, we love honesty, but is this even honesty? It’s too surreal to be honest. Take Audrina and the Hills crew: they have openly suggested that their “scenes” were manipulated. So much so that it actually ruined a lot of their relationships.
In this look-at-me backlash era, we have to start loving the ankle-grazing hemlines of the Celine Winter trenches and embrace discretion and plain old mystery in our lives. To actually wear something that doesn’t show one’s ass. It’s the same with what you choose to tell people about yourself. I look at my old interviews and I want to disown myself for the shit that has come out of my mouth. I forgive myself. I was in my 20s; anything before 30 is forgivable in my book.
Yes, it’s great to share your fab birthday with your friends in the US but maybe not China (no Facebook), but there is a certain sanctity in, say, preserving your honeymoon memories for yourself. I remember seeing someone who was a friend of a friend in her marital bed in Australia. She was splayed on the California king bed, in a suggestive chiffon dress that was meant only for the eyes of her beloved. Needless to say, I was shocked. How do I say to this person who I have not yet met, on the odd occasion when I might come into her acquaintance, that I loved her negligee?
Many prospective employers also judge a person through their pictures in Facebook. A bong photo won’t do much for your career. It’s unfair, but this is how the world works. Now some are even taunting the last frontier of TMI land, BBM messenger. The fact you can update your status Twitter style completes the trifecta.
Seriously, I used to tell people as a joke that if they wanted to know all about me, all they had to do was Google me. How I will clean up 15 Google pages of black propaganda is beyond me. Worse are the ugly-ass photos. At some point you eighty-six it and laugh. We take it upon ourselves to soften our already friable constitutions.
So here I am making up for time in my social convent. I see the beauty of privacy. The less frantic need to be everywhere and talk to everyone. Having memories that I share with my friends that are just ours. Meeting someone and not having any idea how they look drunk. Actually having long conversations with an old friend or someone new. The most enchanting conversations I have these days is with my dog.
I know he won’t tell. And he doesn’t tell me to check Facebook.
