Hesitations

To start, let’s talk about the conception of this post. Facebook.

I saw a person online. Hadn’t talked to them in ages, realized how much I missed them, bla bla same old bullshit.

But what I want to talk about is not that. What I’m talking about is the hesitation that followed when I typed the two letter “Hi” but immediately backspaced it to oblivion and said to myself, “Maybe not today.”

A glitch in my command center that forced me to terminate the process I was about to run.

And while I was going through a brief relapse of how amazing the time we spent together was, I was also going through an entirely different set of thoughts as to why things ended and how come I didn’t have the balls to initiate a simple conversation?

The answer was plain and simple, as you may have already figured it out. We no longer had that same connection that we once had before. Now by no means am I blaming it on that person or anything of that sort. But what really got my mind churning is the sheer amount of letters being ‘backspaced to oblivion’ (I rather like this phrase now) because it either isn’t suitable or isn’t worth it or for some other reason.

What truly bothered me was how the virtual world has forced us to curb ourselves and our expression in terms of making things either too awkward to say in text or too weird for the setting or something that you just cannot text someone. I have fallen prey to this very set of unspoken regulations that seem to police my conscience without me even knowing it.

We live in an environment where it’s okay to say Hi to the one boy/girl you had a crush on as a highschooler when you bump into them in real life but a whole different ball game of “No NO” when it comes to texting that very same person. And why is that? A set of regulations and interpretations ingrained almost automatically by the bytes of the virtual world.

What’s my point? My point is simple: Do what you want to do.
You want to text someone you had a bad fight with weeks ago? You want to text someone you haven’t talked to in months? You want to text your mom and say she’s the best? You want to tell your best friend that you’re in love with them?

In the wise words of Shia LaBeouf: “Just do it.”

You have only two outcomes to deal with, you either get a reply or you don’t. And really, if we think about it, each outcome tells you a lot about what’s happening than the insufferable silence you are receiving.

So pick up your gadget, don’t be a pussy, just say Hi and share how it goes. After all, how bad can it really be?

Raheel Haque, 03:26 November 3^rd, 2016.