You meet someone new. It’s so exciting and fresh and fun. It’s the only good part of the just-as-soon-as-it-started-is-it-over relationship you’re embarking on. Dates number one, two and if you’re lucky three, are full of shy jokes and a few awkward brushes up against each other trying to gauge if they want to kiss you just as much as you want to kiss them.
I’ll cut to the fun part now: the “is-it-over” part. They stop responding quickly, stop making plans, stop making jokes, stop all the things that made you want dates two and three. All while stopping the fresh and fun things, they start blowing you off and making it very apparent (without actually saying it) that their interest reached its peak and is swiftly plummeting to its plateau.
Depending on your own need for closure, whatever that means for you, there might be a conversation had that settles what each of you want or don’t want anymore. Other than that you’re left just clicking through their social media posts fighting off the urge to respond with of the cute little jokes the two of you made up during your seven minutes in heaven.
If you’re like me, you’re what a good friend of mine calls “an adder.” You start to add up all of the things that could have caused the downfall. This can lead you down one of two roads: the oh-well-I’m-better-off-I’ll-find-someone-better road, or the I’ll-show-them-what-they’re-missing-make-them-want-me-more-by-pretending-I’m-not-hurting-over-this-road. Again, if you’re like me, you’re 60 miles deep on road number 2 and entering into Gatsby territory.
After a moment of silence and a week of ice cream for dinner, you start to feel fine. Maybe, you even feel good. You find yourself at a hip juice shop with a healthy toddy in hand and it’s all incredibly Instagram worthy; so you snap a cute pic and put a happy little gif on it with a caption along the lines of,”happy guy, happy girl.”
Thirty minutes later you click to see just who has viewed it and you see your ex-lover’s face in one of those tiny circles. For some reason, it just feels good that they saw it and saw you’re out in the world, happy as can be, without them. Who knows, maybe you’re even with someone else. They don’t know and there is a small rush that comes along with the slight possibility that they’re thinking about it and subsequently thinking about you.
Now begins your slow decent into a carefully curated Instagram life with the singular hope that they will see it and want to be a part of it. Or maybe you just want for them to see it. Either way you’ve found yourself going out, feeding your phone first, photographing your stylish outfits, hanging out with new people… all for the purpose of this one person seeing your fabulous, them-less life on Instagram.
In shorter terms: your posting of this carefully curated life for one single person to see is the social media equivalent of Gatsby throwing elaborate parties with the single hope of Daisy showing up.
Here is the truth I’ve learned from operating under the Gatsby complex: if they didn’t care before, they don’t care now. We all know how “The Great Gatsby” ends. And if you don’t, spoiler alert: Gatsby dies and Daisy doesn’t even send flowers.
My advice, post your life for the people who do care. Or don’t post. It’s all really up to you. But don’t wait for one person to show up to your party. Go dance with those who are already there.
