Love in the Age of Social Media: Part 1

This is (potentially) a series of short stories about, as the title suggests, love in the age of social media.

The relationship ended the same way it began— with a tweet.

She broke it off over DM. It was the only message she ever sent that I didn't screenshot.

When we first started going out, I screenshotted everything. When you’ve lived most of your life in the closet, love feels like something that only happens to straight people. For the first time in my life, I was normal. I had what other people had. Someone loved me and I loved her back. I had to screenshot it all, so I wouldn’t forget — so when I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about a thousand things, I could look at my phone and remember.

Life looked so uncertain before she arrived. I was an unemployed graduate, complaining about being unemployed on Twitter while drinking coffee in a cafe, when she replied:

“@writesthewronglines Know that feeling. Out of work actor here. You’re an out of work writer? We should commiserate over coffee some time!”

Her thumbnail avatar was of a blonde posing outside a theatre, doing an air punch. She looked cute. I wanted to know more.

“@broadwaygal Sure! DM me and we’ll meet up some time.”

So it began.

What no one tells you about love in the age of social media is how much it hurts. Everyone warns about rushing in, keeping separate bank accounts, not moving in together until you've dated for at least two years. No one warns you about the dangers of tagged photographs, how that photo you took of her playing with your niece three years ago will pop up in your feed six months after you’ve broken up. Later, you’ll tell your boss you cried because your dog died that morning because you can’t admit to being on Facebook during his PowerPoint slideshow.

On 02 April 2011 at 4:15pm, en route to the airport, I told her I loved her for the first time over Facebook Chat. She said it back three days later, at 5:05pm, on WhatsApp:

“Amy: Why’d it take you so long to say it back? Did I scare you? Was it too soon?

“Katie: It’s been six months — not too soon. It just caught me by surprise. I’ve been wanting to say it since I met you but I didn’t know how. And I didn’t want to creep you out!”

Over the next two years, she sent a thousand ‘I love you’s’ on Viber, usually with a string of heart emoticons. The night we broke up, I counted them, wondering if they really added up to anything in the end. Were they like a form of Bitcoin? Could I trade them in and get something in return? Like the photos of our holiday to Sorrento, the ones she deleted the night I unfriended her? I liked those pictures. I looked happy then. They made for good profile photos.

The night I realised she didn't love me any more, she checked in somewhere she wasn't.

I was working late. According to Facebook, she was at Starbucks with a colleague, gossiping about an upcoming hen night, imminent babies and marriage. 20 minutes later and three streets away, I saw her, sitting outside a hotel, crying, with a man. It was evening; I was on my break, walking to the 24 hour shop to buy a stale sandwich. I stood and watched them. She couldn't see me. She wouldn't be tweeting about it because I wasn't meant to see this. When he clasped a hand to her belly, I knew.

“@broadwaygal sent you a Direct Message*: What do you want for dinner tonight?

@writesthewronglines: Nothing. Not hungry.

@broadwaygal: You okay?

@writesthewronglines: Who was that man you were outside the Malmaison with?”

She never replied to that message. When I got home that night, she’d left a note on the table. Paper. It was a first. I couldn’t read it. An email could be deleted with one click. It was harder to rip up a letter. I couldn’t destroy it in case it was the last message she ever sent me.

In the months that followed, I would relive our relationship from beginning to end, scrolling obsessively through Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber. Where did it go wrong? Were there signs? Did I not see them? When it took her 2 hours to respond to my text message, was it because she was busy or because they were together? Did she start adding heart emoticons in her messages to him when she stopped using them in mine?

Three years on, she still looks at my LinkedIn profile. It’s the only digital reminder I have that she exists. I scrubbed every inch of her from my online life, like trying to bleach a blood stain from the carpet. Occasionally, she would pop up in my feed. The night the baby was born, I blocked her — 8 pounds three oz, her status said. It was her first update in months. I knew the next notification from her would tell me she was in a relationship with a man. I didn’t need Facebook to remind me of that.