After work, we stayed behind for a while and played cards.
It was loud.
Everybody was arguing over the game, accusing each other of cheating, talking over one another, making stupid comments, and turning something completely insignificant into an unnecessarily serious competition.
And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, I realised I was happy.
Really happy.
……………………………
I couldn’t explain why.
Nothing particularly meaningful was happening. Nobody was giving some profound speech. There wasn’t some life-changing conversation unfolding in front of me.
It was just us. A bunch of tired people after work, fighting over cards.
I recorded it because this is exactly the kind of thing I would normally put on my Instagram Story.
Except I don’t have Instagram anymore.
And strangely, I still wanted to record it.
Maybe because I didn’t actually lose the desire to share my life.
Maybe I just wanted to keep the moment.
Later, while we were walking to one of our usual places, things became considerably less peaceful.
The people caught in the conflict I’ve somehow found myself tangled in finally crossed paths.
One person was avoiding.
Another was overthinking.
Then somebody else became involved and suddenly something that was already complicated became even louder.
More interpretations.
More emotions.
More people having something to say.
And I was tired. So tired.
People have been coming to me with their problems, their complaints, their versions of what happened, asking questions as though somewhere along the way I became the person who was supposed to have an answer.
I don’t.
I don’t know what everybody should do.
I don’t know what everybody is thinking.
I don’t know who’s going to feel differently tomorrow.
Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m feeling myself.
At some point I just wanted to have a drink, have some fun and let all the noise around me disappear for a little while.
And I remembered something.
I don’t owe everybody an explanation.
I don’t owe everybody an answer.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care.
It doesn’t mean I’m heartless.
It doesn’t mean I’m a bad friend.
It just means that sometimes someone can come to me with a problem and the most truthful thing I have to offer is:
I don’t know.
Because I’m tired too.
I’m figuring things out too.
At some point during all of this, I checked the Rosie’s Instagram again.
Which is becoming slightly ironic considering I no longer have any personal social media.
Another post from the marketing team had gone up. Once again, it was collaborated across multiple Rosie’s venues.
And once again, the post I had personally made was reaching significantly more people.
I started thinking about why.
Their content is polished.
Professional.
Very recognisably marketing.
Mine was simply a picture of two people we work with.
People know them.
Their friends know them.
They recognise their faces.
They have some sort of connection to what they’re seeing.
And maybe that’s the difference.
In this endless amount of information being thrown at us every day, I think people are still searching for something they can relate to.
Maybe because it makes them feel safe.
Maybe because it makes them feel loved.
Maybe because it gives them something to criticise.
Maybe because it gives them something to hate.
But when people recognise something of themselves, or something familiar, they react.
They engage.
And engagement doesn’t necessarily mean understanding.
I’ve already learned that lesson the hard way.
Something I once posted innocently became something people interpreted through their own perspective, and those interpretations travelled far beyond what was actually happening in the moment.
The same thing that makes something relatable enough to connect people can make it relatable enough for them to project onto it too.
I understand social media better now.
And somehow that makes me want my own social media even less.
Eventually, I found myself sitting alone in the corner.
I wasn’t angry.
I wasn’t mad at anyone.
I wasn’t sitting there hoping somebody would notice me being distant.
I just wanted to be away.
People kept coming over to check whether I was okay.
And I appreciated it.
But I didn’t really have anything to tell them.
I didn’t want another conversation.
I didn’t want to comfort anybody.
For once, I didn’t want to feel needed.
I just wanted to sit with my drink and comfort myself.
And maybe that’s allowed too.
Today was technically my day off, and eventually things became much quieter.
I finally had the conversation I had been needing to have with the person at the centre of everything that started this mess.
For the first time, I got to properly hear his side.
And I got to say mine.
I can’t pretend that none of this has affected me.
I’m hurting too.
Maybe that’s something I hadn’t really allowed myself to admit while I was busy worrying about how everybody else was feeling.
But I said what I needed to say.
He listened.
He accepted it gracefully.
And I listened to him too.
There were things I had judged from the outside without actually understanding what was happening from his perspective.
I had even judged one of his friends badly without knowing his side of the story.
So I apologised for that.
I think I needed to.
Because after spending the last few days thinking so much about how people interpret fragments of other people’s lives, it would be hypocritical of me not to recognise when I had done the same thing.
Once everything was said, something shifted.
Not because every problem suddenly disappeared.
But because I finally had more information than assumptions.
And now I feel like I can decide what I need to do next with a clearer head.
There was another relationship I needed to repair too.
Mariele and I hadn’t properly spoken for days.
She had really pissed me off.
And if I’m being truthful, part of me intentionally withdrew because I thought she needed to come down from her pride a little.
I wanted her to realise that I was serious.
So I ignored her.
But ignoring somebody you love isn’t particularly satisfying when you’re hurting too.
And I didn’t like how snappy I had become with her.
I think everything happening around me had started leaking into how I treated people who weren’t necessarily responsible for all of it.
Today she came to me differently.
Quietly.
Humbly.
She apologised.
And I finally said my piece.
She listened.
I listened.
And we resolved it.
I’m glad we did.
Because I don’t want being overwhelmed to turn me into someone who becomes sharp with the people I love.
And then the rest of the night became something I think I really needed.
No dramatic conversations.
No interrogations.
No sides.
Just people.
We hung out.
Made stupid jokes.
Caught up.
I got to have genuinely deep conversations with people I love without them turning into arguments.
I spent time with a newer friend I’ve only known for a few weeks and watched him fit naturally into my existing circle.
They liked him.
He liked them.
And there was something incredibly comforting about watching different pieces of my life fit together without me having to force anything.
By the end of the night, I realised that, from my point of view, everything I personally needed to resolve today had been resolved.
I had heard his side.
I had apologised where I needed to apologise.
I had spoken to someone at work I trusted.
I repaired things with Mariele.
I had said the things sitting heavily on my chest.
And suddenly there wasn’t another conversation waiting for me in the back of my mind.
I could just be there.
Even work gave me another little reason to feel proud today.
My boss asked me to take care of another venue’s social media as well.
Which is honestly quite funny.
I deactivate all my personal social media accounts and apparently immediately become more responsible for everybody else’s.
But I think it proves something to me.
I don’t hate social media.
I’m actually quite good at it.
I understand what makes people stop scrolling.
I understand what feels human.
I understand what people respond to.
And apparently the people I work with recognise that too.
I just don’t need it for myself right now.
Somehow, I’m becoming better at social media at exactly the same time that I’m learning I don’t need social media to live my own life.
And maybe that’s why tonight felt as good as it did.
I’ve hung out with these same people before.
I’ve been at these same places.
I’ve laughed at the same stupid jokes.
But previously, even while I was sitting with people I cared about, some part of me would still be somewhere else.
Checking Instagram.
Seeing what somebody else was doing.
Seeing somebody else’s relationship.
Somebody else’s night out.
Somebody else’s face.
Somebody else’s life.
And without even realising it, comparing their happiness to mine.
Tonight I couldn’t do that.
There was nothing to check.
Nobody else’s life was sitting in my pocket waiting for me to look at it.
So I looked at mine.
The people sitting around me.
The conversations happening in front of me.
The stupid jokes.
The drinks.
The arguments over nothing.
The new friendships slowly becoming real friendships.
The old friendships being repaired.
The uncomfortable conversations finally being had.
And I realised something incredibly simple.
I wasn’t consuming other people’s happiness anymore.
I was experiencing my own.
I don’t think deactivating social media magically fixed anything.
There are still things I’m trying to understand.
There are still people hurting.
I’m still hurting in some ways too.
And I’m sure there will be more complicated days.
But tonight I was completely there.
Not wondering whether somewhere else looked more exciting.
Not wondering whether somebody else was more loved.
Not wondering whether somebody else’s life looked better than mine.
There was nobody else to compare the moment against.
There was just us.
And for once,
that felt like more than enough.