Dear FB

Dear FB,

It’s not you. It’s me.

We met, three years ago, and I wanted to impress you with all my charms. I loved the friends you introduced me to – and was delighted to find out you could connect me to people I knew way back when. I loved that I could be myself with you – some people said that that could reinvent themselves with you, but I felt more like I could reveal all sides of myself.

And yet.

They say that people who live together grow to look alike, that even people and their pets often resemble each other. I grew different during our relationship: I began to perform, to seek applause, to try to be liked. I began to look at things in terms of how I would tell you about them. I started checking in with you, too often, obsessively.

Twice, I quit you temporarily. Always, I felt relief when we couldn’t be in contact- I felt rescued from my lack of resistance.

Most recently, I went on holidays without you. I had fun, hanging out with my daughter, my sister, my parents, traveling, reading, shopping, swimming, exploring, eating, learning. When I finally got back to you, what I saw was irony, cheap laughs, striving, flippancy. What I had been reading about – and doing - was being my best self. There was a disconnect.

Sometimes you can salvage the relationship and sometimes you can’t.

I once broke up like this before. Pretty much overnight, the scales fell from my eyes and I knew that I needed to end things.

Breaking up isn’t easy. Breaking up doesn’t end the work I have to do. It’s just the beginning.

It’s been fun, FB. But I’m going for real and for best and for a world in which every sentence does not start with me.

Love,

Susan