Recently I received an email from a friend I haven’t seen in close to 5 years. Throughout our physical separation we have stayed in touch loosely via email and by following each other on Facebook. His email read something like this- – “I get the impression from your Facebook that you are living in a dream, it is quite appealing to me ” I smiled at his awkward English (he’s French), but his words stuck in my head and I began to think about the world we have created for ourselves. Through the eyes of social media we seem to think that we know each other. Through our strings of short texts and emojis, we seem to think that we are conveying who we are, what we are, what we are feeling. We think that that through these communications we are building and sustaining meaningful relationships.  I’m certain we are not. We are not.

We can’t possibly be able to understand what is going on in each other’s lives by relying so heavily on the interpretation of an emoji with hearts for eyes or a tear rolling down its face. Short spurts of words and hash tags. I feel the unraveling, the slow disconnect, the deterioration. A million flat, lifeless communications being strung together and being called a relationship.  It’s not a relationship.  It’s just not.

I think about the last few good conversations I have had with people. The look across the table into each other’s eyes conversations. There is nothing that can be texted that will convey the feeling of hot tears prickling at the back of my eyes as my heart hurt for a friend’s pain. No hashtag will ever come close to the experience of bumpy chills on my skin as I was told a story so inspiring I wanted to crawl inside and live it. No emoji will ever depict the giddy joy that comes when you unwrap the package that is  a newly developing friendship. The fullness of those experiences are wrapped so tightly inside me that even now I can draw upon those feelings with perfect clarity and feel them with a certain beautiful depth.

Am I living in a dream?  Look into my eyes and ask me and I will do the same for you. We will share an experience.  It will be lovely and  it will go on and on.