taking sides, goodbye girl
when a once-favorite youtuber gets on your bad side over small talk, on behalf of someone else
does it matter what I say?
you’ve already walked away
and I’m not a prime member
of your fan club
I swore I wouldn’t take sides, not after the last time. But it’s already been months and I realized I already did, because of what she said and how she acted: above reproach, honest, an open wound wanting desperately to heal.
What am I doing this for? Have I run out of material for this blog?
A YouTube video about A.I. (aren’t they all?), the ex-friend of an online acquaintance said something that stopped me in my tracks, something about small talk and how she hates it with “the passion of a thousand suns.”
It hurt me as deeply as it would this acquaintance, who walked away from one of the greatest loves she’d ever known — a love she literally moved several states for.
I hate small talk too, but within context. I’m learning to appreciate why we do it though, because I am a lot older than both these women, and I know how hard it is to break down carefully built walls without a little, “How’s the weather over where you live?”
If we do it mindlessly, to go along and get along and make a newcomer feel bad, then no small talk for me.
But if we do it to break the ice a little so we can find the rhythm of our natural conversation and slip in with as little damage to the psyche as possible? Small talk can open up into depths we’ve never known, because we never bothered to take the person behind the “Good morning” and “How are you?” into account.
Reporters practice this technique, if you will, all the time, or we’d get nothing from our Johnny-on-the-spot sources but, “I don’t know.”
(That YouTuber) probably didn’t have the time, patience, or self-awareness to wait a few beats, take a breath, and let that person in, see the world from their fragile point of view, and finally see that we’re all the same.
We need love, acceptance, understanding, connection, and that magical uplifting that happens when two or more are gathered in action toward a great mission, even if it’s as innocuous-sounding as a bunch of best-actress nominees agreeing beforehand to stand hand-in-hand onstage like beauty contestants before the winner is announced in an award show.
I cried watching that clip on Instagram. Not because Melissa McCarthy won, but because all these different actresses were in agreement, they played along, and it was a breathtaking, wonderful thing to be on the same page with so many other people from so many other walks of life.
So, if a little small talk gets me there, I’ll play along, too.
Besides, what is small talk to you? Small talk to this semi-famous YouTuber may be a lifeline to someone in the depths of despair needing nothing more than companionable silence, a hand on the shoulder, and, “is that bobble stitch hard to do?”
Maybe that person needed a break from the constant fear-porn YouTubers like her live and die and profit off of. Ever think of that? I do — a lot more than I used to when I was young and full of myself, thinking I had all the answers and everybody else was one of those “most people don’t understand” types.
I hear more than your scripted words when you say with as much pathos in your broken voice as possible, “I love you guys,” before signing off.
I hear more than you think.
You are a discordant note in a symphony of that friend who moved mountains to be close to you. You never even looked back to see how she was doing, while you torched your ideals like some modern-day digital Joan of Arc for millions of strangers.
Any port in a storm, huh.
She was your friend. A rare, precious, heart-beating in her chest friend. In real time, in person, there for you friend. She loved you with all her heart and soul. And you didn’t think twice when you cut her open with that dismissive remark about not being into “small talk.”
Small talk. That’s all she gets from you??
That one remark invalidated all the time and effort you both put into this friendship, the walls your care and devotion and brilliant history broke down so easily, an awakening she welcomed.
Your blanket hatred and disdain for “small talk” made her invisible all over again, as if the two of you never happened, and love is just another monetized emotion for hits, likes, and Patreon subscribers. But maybe that was your point all along, hypocrite.
You make a lie of your hard years’ work trying to report the “truth” to “most people don’t understand” what’s going on in this dystopian universe. You are as cold and unfeeling and indifferent as the A.I. you take way too long to criticize, as if you’re lecturing us in fourth-year when we’re just children reaching out for our warm mothers’ hugs.
I don’t know you and I don’t really know her very much beyond what I see online, but I do know what you did to her was pretty fucking low.
You didn’t even have the decency to stop her from walking away, to stop and listen to her side of the story, and to remember the friend she was to you. She wouldn’t be saying this to you if she didn’t have a legitimate reason. You know that. You know her. You’re a smart girl, you know better, you know she deserved better from you, friend.
Or was all that a lie to get one more fan? Can you tell the difference anymore?
You go online to preach at us minions about being human in an A.I. universe when you’re doing the same. You’ve already become one of them.
What do I know. I don’t have real friends either. Maybe, maybe you and I are one side of the same coin, only I’m here feeling badly and you’re there, making another pointless bravado video for the masses, hoping to impress, make a lasting impact, plant a seed for change for the betterment of humankind, because deep down inside, you know you royally fucked up, you destroyed someone innocent in all this.
You callously tossed your best friend aside for your lofty ideals. That’s as A.I. as you can get, goodbye girl.
You’re so far up your own ass you’ve forgotten (if you ever really knew at all) that humankind can only get better if it’s one on one, sitting in a field of blue bells, making small talk in between the awkward silences, and letting people be, so they can cope with the hell of our own making unfolding all around — in their own way.
Yeah, small talk.
