When I was on Facebook years ago, I used to receive tons of texts from people on my birthday. And about 10 years ago, there was a trend where people sent out group “merry xmas” and “happy new years” texts on those respective holidays.
I hated receiving all of those texts.
I felt like all of them were cheap, basically worthless. If FB is just telling people it’s your birthday, like some sort of alarm on an electronic calendar, and if people are just ticking the box next to your name before hitting ‘send’ on a mass mail-out, it’s not very heartfelt, is it? I was quite happy when I quit FB, and when the xmas and New Years text trend died, and all those stupid texts ceased.
But yesterday, I was thinking about how I generally spend those particular days with just Jenn, and I realized that if I wasn’t with her, I would spend those special days quite alone. I would probably get up and go about my business, like any other day. I find that incredibly sad, incredibly miserable. In my early 20’s, I spent one xmas alone as an experiment and I remember being shocked at how depressing and crushingly lonely it was, even for me.
Now, I’m exaggerating slightly here — a few people still text me on the days in question, but the number has dwindled so much so that if the trend continues, this desolate future I’m prophesying will actually come to pass in just a few years.
So the conclusion I came to is that sometimes, things are only annoying until they’re gone, and then once they’re gone, you wish someone cared enough to annoy you.
Another interesting aspect to this is that years ago, Mark told me he read some study about how people in unhappy relationships were happier than people who were alone. I thought that was stupid because I think my dad has been in an unhappy relationship for 30 years, and always thought he’d be way happier alone. But after this ‘annoying text’ revelation, I think Mark and that study and my dad may be on to something. Maybe having someone to bitch at you and bicker with constantly is better than waking up alone every morning, spending the day in silence, going to bed, and knowing that if you died, no one would notice for weeks.
crimson highway 