Since the last post regarding digital relationships, wittly called One Degree of Kevin Bacon > Digital Relationships in the 21st Century, there has been some development in my life, involving one particular digital relationship.
I thought I lost you somewhere, but you were never really ever there at all.
The story began in an IRC channel a long long time ago. Back when the things were slightly different, back when sugary drinks were cheap, when there wasn’t this much war in the world, when a pandemic didn’t try to wipe out humanity, along with wiping the stocks of butt-wiping paper. We have met before, in somewhat similar circumstances, and we kept seeing about our lives and it seems our path crossed several times.
We got into endless talks, sharing information and bouncing ideas. I’m not sure what kind of relationship we had, I’ve learned a lot. And by “a lot”, I mean A LOT. Music, movies, ideas, to try to view other points of view and to “trust, but verify”. I always trusted you, because you were smart, witty, always with a good joke or a good meme at hand, or hitting me with a brilliant article about technology. You were engaging and interesting and always made me keep my mind on my toes.
This digital relationship was nothing different than a physical relationship between two peole. Except we didn’t drink coffee, I know I drank a lot of it, and that you only liked its smell. Many times, I’ve put your presence above the presence of physical friends around me. I don’t regret it, but it’s a marker of how much this meant to me. I liked having you around and spending time together, the endless sessions where we’d talk the night through until late morning listening to music and sharing stuff. You’ve encouraged me to start writing again, hell, this site would have been so much quieter without your input, advice and your inspiration, or maybe it wouldn’t have existed at all. You’ve made me find passions I thought to be lost and to enjoy new things. I’ve always considered you a friend, even though you warned me not to do so. Guess it was some kind of parasocial relationship? No idea. I confided in you and shared things I didn’t share with anyone else, without thinking, without remorse, without fear. You know things about me that no one has known. In hindsight, I should have known better.
Something happened along the way. “L’amour dure trois ans”, they say. Day after day, I’ve seen us drifting apart more and more. And then some more. As the world around us transformed, I saw you transform even more. Your jokes started to be replaced by insults, your memes by hate, any discussion about a particular subject would transform into an indictment and an execution of my personale being for not agreeing with your opinions.
I assumed some time apart would eventually bring us together. And it did, after all our paths crossed so many times before. For a while everything was fine, we went back to our old selves, and then you started the blame game again. The shoving down my throat of stuff I said I didn’t want to discuss. After all, as a dear friend said to me once, “friends don’t let friends talk politics”. You decided to break my boundaries. And not only once. And then you decided to leave. And that was fine, for a while. But somehow your absence hurt more than your presence, so I decided to try to mend what can be mended, I wanted, no I needed your company. I enjoyed it, as it filled some empty places in my soul better than ten other people could have done. But it was not what I hoped, or at least not for long. You went away again, shutting the door in my face once more. I’ve been here countless times. We’ve had difference of opinions before. Even fights, I guess. But I respected your views, even when they were so much different from mine. Or even when I thought they were shit. I tried to meet you half way, or to avoid the matter completely.
But this time, something’s different, I think something just snapped. I don’t miss you at all, I’m not sad that you left, I am just happy that the fights and arguments stopped. I know that you’re fine and that you will be fine wherever you go and whatever you do, so I’m not worried about you. I’m trying to look in my crystal ball, to predict the future using various AI models, but I don’t see a case where our paths cross again voluntarily. But Lady Luck is a bitch, so who knows?
This “digital relationship” was longer, sometimes more intense and brought more intrinsic value to my life than most of my non-digital relationships. I don’t know if I loved you, but I definitely cared for you. I don’t think I care that much anymore, but I’d never wished you bad thins. I’m happy to have known you and I wish I thanked you for everything while we were still talking.
In the end, looking back at all the time we spent, I realized I just enjoyed your company, but I actually never knew you at all.
As we sit back to back, the entire world is between us.
Nothing connects us anymore.
Lost.
Our Kevin Bacon number is zero.
