How To Forget Real Life

Social media works by stoking our fears, and I let those fears follow me into the face-to-face world.

When my local social events first started to reopen after a long lockdown, one of my big fears was that people in my local groups would behave the way people behaved online. They'd spend all our social time having bitter arguments about the issues of the day. They'd realize I'd done something questionable - we're talking small sins, like reading certain fanfiction, or doing polyamory in a certain way, or even staying too long with a partner who wasn't good for me - and I'd instantly be cancelled from the group forever.

Surprise: turns out real life is not, in fact, like Twitter. Nobody cancelled me. I spent the last few months meeting up with my local friends and they love me and think I'm great.