Get Connected
By SteveSo, I’ve been thinking a lot about connections, the ones you make and have with friends and lovers. Those people who finish your sentences, the ones who bring a bit of calm to the chaos. Ones that you’re there for, and are there for you. Those things Justine Frischmann was singing about in 1994.
I’ve always been a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. That is, I think tomorrow will probably suck but things will be better in the future. Despite this gloomily sunny outlook, I’ve reached the point where I’m afraid I’m unable to make long-term connections with anyone anymore. I have friends and acquaintances. Some people who might read this fall into one of those categories. And I love my friends, I really do. But I’m not sure I have a real connection with any of them. We all share some interests, and we might like hanging out, but something is missing.
I got to thinking about this more after seeing a movie. It’s called “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” and for some reason it just killed me when I saw it a couple of years ago. It’s a twee little indie that’s probably too cute and smarmy for its own good, and really doesn’t feature any recognizable human relationships. But it worked for me. In a big way.
What it kind of touches on is how the great irony of us using our blogs, cell phones, laptops, instant messengers, Blackberrys, and other technological tools to help us connect with each other ends up isolating us. We’ve all become socially retarded, and like the characters in the movie, we try to break out of our prisons of loneliness in the worst and most awkward ways imaginable. We attack things from the wrong angles and look for solutions in the wrong places from the wrong people.
The movie is written and directed by someone named Miranda July, who also stars. I now have a major crush on her. She has kind of a geeked-out Maggie Gyllenhaal vibe. She plays a performance artist who’s the amazing, wildly creative, brilliant, and eccentric type who becomes interested in a shoe salesman going through a divorce. (Yes, it’s a fantasy.) In the beginning of the movie, he tries to impress his kids by lighting his hand on fire, mimicking a trick someone showed him. Only he uses the wrong chemical and suffers serious burns. (Yes, it’s a little too cute for its own good.)
Anyway, all sorts of things happen, some of which may involve little kids in sex chat rooms talking about poop, another kid getting a blow job from two 15-year-old girls, a man discovering his soul mate at 70, and the saddest goldfish death committed to film.
But in the end, it’s optimistic. So the story goes, if this bunch of misfits is able to connect with others in ways only they may be able to understand, maybe there’s hope for us all.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I’ve reached the point where I’m afraid I’m unable to make long-term connections with anyone anymore. I have friends and acquaintances. Some people who might read this fall into one of those categories. And I love my friends, I really do. But I’m not sure I have a real connection with any of them. We all share some interests, and we might like hanging out, but something is missing.
The only true friends I have (I have a LOT of aquaintances and I’ve known some people online for as long as I’ve been online) are four people I met at age 2, 5-in-Kindergarten, something-in-3rd-Grade, & something-in-5th-Grade. I used to have two others from the 3rd & 4th grade eras (1st year of college now by the way), but I’ve already drifted apart from them.
Ever since I left elementary school, I simply haven’t connected with anyone on a deeper level. The one time I did, he lived 2000 miles away, and despite a camping trip offer, I never got a chance to meet him & become “real” (well, let’s stick to “local” - it’s my only optimistic chance) friends with him.
With the rest of my friends ready to move away in a few years, I may end up stranded entirely quite soon. My only chance is dating, and I can’t say that I’ve ever kissed a girl since 2nd grade (don’t ask), nor have I really had any female friends in the offline world. (strange, no?)
I think that’s part of the reason why I’m always the very last person standing in any sort of group that falls apart. (band, clans, that bunch of people who talk outside of classes, forums, magazines…) I don’t have many real attachments, so I try to stick around where I can.
Hi Steve! You’re my psychological defense mechanism of the day!
You know, on the plus side, the side effect is a benefit for other people - I’m loyal beyond fault.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
What it kind of touches on is how the great irony of us using our blogs, cell phones, laptops, instant messengers, Blackberrys, and other technological tools to help us connect with each other ends up isolating us. We’ve all become socially retarded, and like the characters in the movie, we try to break out of our prisons of loneliness in the worst and most awkward ways imaginable. We attack things from the wrong angles and look for solutions in the wrong places from the wrong people.
I forgot to comment on this part. Like almost anyone of my generation (although I can definitely work around this part these days - mostly just by nature of me not wanting to feel negative emotions by choice, so I don’t) I am socially inept. I have no idea how to make chit chat (though Seinfeld has taught me how to analyze & commentate on nothingness) and on top of that, my vocabulary fails me at all times of great importance.
I need an edit button. If I had a keyboard and five minutes to work out what I wanted to say, I could run for President & smooth talk my way into office. As it stands? I represent a particularly obscure portion of modern society: Zero human relations. It compounds itself into my larger problem: Zero friends of recent beginnings.
In fact, after reading Gun, with Occasional Music (a fantastic book by the way, which I recommend anyone pick up - the 1994 printing has a particularly amusing cover; Amazon dudes) and witnessing the social forecast presented in its view of a Science Fiction world, a complete lack of social skills is a basis for my own Science Fiction premise. That and a strong blend of A Scanner Darkly, of course. A lack of humanized social relations, a split personality hunting itself down for crimes it committed as an officer of the law, a completely late-1900s level of technology outside of one small background feature… It’s really the story of my vicarious life.
Maybe I should get a real life… Well, there’s always Xpogo.