“In today’s world, all we have to do to “disappear” is delete all our social media accounts. Without those, only the people who see you outside of a computer or phone screen will actually know you, instead of knowing the person we create through a profile.” – Tori O’Connor

I have a confession to make. My Facebook and Instagram make my life look exponentially more extravagant and perfect than it actually is. Shocking right? Believe it or not I don’t go to the river every day. I don’t attend beautiful weddings every weekend. My friends and I aren’t always smiling and laughing when we’re together. I did do a lot of studying last semester. I only hiked in Yosemite a few times. (Ok, that last one digresses from the point because “a few times” is still genuinely AWESOME, but you’ll get over it). I don’t actually have over 1,000 friends. In real life I can only invest in so many people at once. I think I’m more of a Jerry Seinfeld kind of person: [image error]

Also, you’d never know this by looking at my profile pictures, but according to my High Sierran friends, my looks resemble a mixture of the llama, Kuzco, from Emperor’s New Groove and a mermaid…I accept that with open arms. But that’s one of those stupid little things that I’m actually kind of hoping you don’t understand unless you know me apart from social media. My point here is that I don’t tend to put pictures of me looking like a llama on Facebook. “Why” you might ask? Figure it out.

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Anyways, you get the point. My life isn’t as grand as it may seem on social media, and I would bet my entire college student bank account that yours isn’t either.

So clearly this is not some new, profound discovery that I’m expressing. But lately I’ve gotten more fed up than usual. I get tired of seeing everyone’s best life, and this summer I’ve been more guilty than ever of making my own life look remarkably more perfect than it is. My Instagram pictures show the best moments of the best days. I mean, no one wants to see a picture of my crappiest moments. That’s not the way of the social media world.

I don’t want to ignore the fact that those super rad things you and I are posting are actually happening. But I also have to say that if you didn’t post it on Facebook, I’m not sure I would ever hear about it at all. So what does that say about social media? It says that, for many of us, our relationships are being built through a screen, through something that filters out all the unattractive, messed up parts of our lives and puts out a clean, sparkly version of who we are. Well some of us (aka my main girl Tsizzle and I) are tired of seeing everyone’s sparkly lives and are tired of making our own look sparkly. If I was to be completely realistic and vulnerable with you all, if I was to be completely open about everything that goes on in my annoyingly complicated brain (which I’m not gonna do), then I think my life would end up looking a lot less like I’m living a fairytale and a lot more like I’m living a life with a lot of battles similar to yours. Some struggles would naturally differ, but I think we would all be a little surprised by how many of them overlap.

What would happen if we took the time and expended the energy to really get to know each other? Oh yeah, you’re right. The world would probably explode. . . or we would have meaningful relationships with the people who take the time and put real effort into our lives. I realize it’s unrealistic to not use social media these days. Obviously, I’m just as into it as most people. But I think it’s important that we examine our relationships more deeply.

Tori prompted me to ask myself this question: If I was to leave all social media behind, who would I disappear to forever? And who would be the people who come looking for me when I do disappear? Because those people are the ones who can handle the grime hidden beneath the facade of perfection. Those people might actually be forced to be bold. They might actually have to risk rejection in a more painful way than just not getting a response on Facebook. Timidity has no place in meaningful relationships. People respond to boldness.

I challenge you to think about this: If social media didn’t exist, who would pursue a relationship with you?  And just as importantly, who would you pursue?