The Rules of Engagement

All of this Technology for Communication has pushed people away from one another.

As I get older, I tend to reflect on the past more. I like to think about “Sliding Doors”. You know, that movie where Gwyneth Paltrow goes through the sliding door and also missed going through the sliding door, and her life was completely different, dependent on whether she went through it or not? I think about those times in life where an alternate decision could have had massive reverberations throughout my life and whether I’d be living in the Butterfly Effect with a different existence than now. Not that I want a different outcome than what I have now, but the science, theory, and philosophy behind it all interests me. Wouldn’t you want to look into alternate realities of your existence if you could? Let’s not even get into how dreams are theorized to be images from those alternate realities that your subconscious mind is tapping into when you sleep. And then sometimes, I just want answers to questions that lingered from the past. Curiosity and/or closure.

We have all of this technology for communication now and I want to ask people certain things about certain events but no one really talks anymore. Everyone makes a post and damn it to hell, leave us alone, “That post should have been a good enough update for you. Why do I have to actually converse with you, even through this hideous internet?”

Well… because… I’d just like to know?

• I’d like to know if the haunted hotel that Abby and I ate dinner at was in San Antonio or New Orleans? I can’t remember. We sat in front of the fire and I remember thinking, this would be the perfect spot for a ghost to make themselves known. I’d just like to know which city that was in?

• I’d like to know if John is only an acquaintance type of friend now and friendship is just weddings and events?

• I’d like to know Emma’s intentions in the bathroom way back in the day?

• I’d like to know whatever happened to the red truck Jimmy used to drive?

• I’d like to know if my art teacher in High School really did keep weed in the kiln?

• I’d like to know if Rochelle thought fighting to hold on at a pivotal phone call would have changed anything?

• I’d like to know if Adam just doesn’t have any of the same interests as me now?

• I’d like to know what it all meant to Sindy?

• I’d like to know why my concert buddy Todd vanished when I wouldn’t cancel Netflix over a show he disliked? Like… WTF???!!!???

All these things I think about, I think about, I always come unglued. - Stone Temple Pilots (Unglued)

Okay, I don’t come unglued and I don’t obsess over these things but, it would be nice to know the answers to all of these questions. And the kicker is, I could easily send a message to most of the people in this list but, I don’t. Because… No one is close anymore. No one talks one-on-one anymore. I don’t know the rules of engagement to something so simple as, “Hey Abby. do you remember if the haunted hotel we ate at was in New Orleans or San Antonio?”

There’s an ocean between everyone now. A really fucking BIG ocean, even to friendships from the past. And this damn internet and all of our modern technology is behind this distance. People expect you to text them first now, to make sure that calling them is okay. “Dial a friend” is now too extraneous. “Keep in touch,” these days, means check out my posts on social media when I make them. Humanity has gone into solitude.

I don’t have an answer to it. I imagine these inquiries will just persist on until the end. I also suspect that human interaction will get even more distant as technology continues to come between us. It seems that society will fall apart as technology continues to advance.