Author: Alif

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.

Today started with a cup.

A Stanley cup, specifically.

I had wanted the classic Stanley shape for quite a while, and last night I got an email about one from Starbucks. The moment I saw it, I already knew I wanted it.

Then this morning, while getting coffee before work, I checked my local Starbucks.

And there it was. On display.

Perfect.

The problem is, I’m currently very low on funds.

Payday is Thursday. Two days away.

Did that stop me?

Absolutely not.

I wanted it really, really, really badly, so I bought it.

Maybe tomorrow I won’t eat out.

Maybe I won’t hang out with friends.

Maybe that is financially questionable.

But look at it.

I regret nothing.

Also, I bought it from Starbucks because Stanley cups are one of those things that seem to have a million fake versions floating around online. Starbucks is an established retailer, so at least I can trust that what I bought is actually what I think I bought.

Worth it.

Probably.

Later, I checked the Rosie’s Instagram account and noticed something that made me ridiculously proud.

A post I personally uploaded was performing better than one created by the official marketing team.

Theirs had the advantage of being a collaboration with three other Rosie’s venues.

Mine didn’t.

And somehow mine still reached more people.

That felt good.

Really good.

Not because I suddenly missed having social media for myself.

That was actually the interesting part.

I can still use social media professionally.

I can still understand what works.

I can still make something that performs well and feel proud of it.

But none of that made me want to reactivate my own accounts.

And I can’t really explain why.

Maybe I don’t have to.

Maybe I’m starting to make peace with the fact that not everything I feel needs to be dissected until I understand it completely.

Maybe it’s enough to simply notice:

I’m proud of this.

And I still don’t want to go back.

Before work, I sat outside for a while.

I’ve sat there so many times that I couldn’t even begin to count them.

And somehow, today was the first time I really noticed the flowers next door.

They were beautiful.

That sounds so stupidly simple, but that was exactly what made it feel important.

How many times had I sat in that exact same place before?

How many times had those flowers probably been there?

And how many times had I looked down at my phone instead?

Today I just sat there.

Music playing.

People walking past.

I noticed what they were wearing.

I noticed the air.

I noticed how fresh it felt when I breathed in.

I noticed the cold breeze against my skin.

I didn’t really have anywhere else to be in my head.

I was just there.

Watching everything happen in real time.

I don’t really know how to describe that feeling yet.

Presence, maybe.

Stillness.

Relief.

I just know it felt nice.

At some point during the day, I also said something completely stupid:

“I should abuse people but here I am, abusing alcohol instead…”

To be clear, I am not abusing alcohol.

It was just one of those ridiculous sentences that normally would have immediately become an Instagram Note or a Story.

The kind of thought that appears in my head, makes me laugh, gets posted, and disappears.

Except now, I guess it ends up here.

Which is kind of funny.

Maybe I haven’t stopped wanting to share things.

Maybe I’ve just changed where I put them.

One of the people who has been tangled up in everything that happened recently was working today too.

At one point he said:

“I don’t need alcohol to have a good time, but it sure damn helps.”

I laughed.

But I also looked at him and felt something else.

I love him so much.

He is very, very good at hiding pain.

Maybe I don’t know exactly what he is feeling. I don’t want to pretend that I do.

But I can see enough to know that he is hurting too.

And right now, I don’t want to force anything out of him.

I don’t need him to explain himself.
I don’t need him to talk just because I think he should.
I just want him to feel comfortable.

I want him to know that he can sit beside me without owing me a conversation.

Maybe that is enough for now.

Later in the afternoon, the sun started coming through the venue.

Golden hour.

Normally, when I think about golden hour, I think about selfies.

Good lighting.
Pose properly.
Take twenty photos.
Pick the best one.

Edit it.
Think of a caption.
Post it.

Today I still took the selfie.

Of course I did.

But something was different.

The sunlight wasn’t valuable because it made me look good.

I could actually feel it.

The warmth on my face.
The light coming through the doors.
The way everything looked softer for a few minutes.

It felt so nice.

I think before, I would have immediately started thinking about how to make the moment look perfect.

Today, I just noticed that it already was.

And then something else happened.

I actually enjoyed work.

Not tolerated it.
Not survived it.
Not counted the hours until I could leave.

I had fun.

A feeling I honestly haven’t felt in a very long time.

I went around talking to customers.

Actually talking.

Not just taking orders and giving the right hospitality responses.

I interacted with people in real time.

I joked around.

I felt social.
I felt present.

And apparently my aura was doing something right today because multiple customers told me I was doing a good job.

I wish they knew how much those words meant to me.

They probably thought they were just giving me a compliment.

Something small.
Something they would forget five minutes later.

But today?

I needed to hear it.

And then one customer tipped me fifty dollars.

Proof.

I took a photo with the note because obviously I did.

But even that felt different somehow.

It wasn’t really about needing everyone else to know that I had a good moment.

I think I just wanted to remember it.

That seems to be the theme of today.

Remembering.

Not performing.

The Stanley cup made me happy.
The work post made me proud.
The flowers made me stop.
My friend made me care.
The sunlight made me feel.
The customers made me feel seen.

And somewhere in between all of that, I think I noticed something else.

Myself.

A little bit.

Not completely.

I’m not going to turn one good day into some dramatic declaration that everything is suddenly okay.

I don’t think that would be honest.
But today felt lighter.

And after how heavy everything has felt recently, I think I’m allowed to appreciate that without questioning it too much.

Maybe I really am starting to notice things again.

Not just flowers.
Not just sunlight.
Not just people walking past.

But the actual experience of being alive while all of it is happening.

And for today,

that feels like enough.

There wasn’t really one dramatic moment where I decided, That’s it. I’m deleting everything.

It had been building for a while.

Recently, scrolling through social media started making me feel worse about myself more often than it made me feel good. I would see people who looked better than me, or at least people I thought looked better than me, and somehow their existence became evidence of everything I thought I was lacking. I would look at their faces, their bodies, their clothes, their lives, and without even consciously trying to, I would compare myself.

Then there were the couples. People being loved openly. People going on dates. People posting their partners. Little videos of somebody looking at somebody else like they were the most important person in the room. And I would look at my own life.

Single. Alone.

And somewhere along the way, the thought stopped being simply, I wish I had that. It became, Why don’t I have that? And eventually:

What is wrong with me? Why am I not enough?

I know logically that somebody else’s happiness doesn’t take anything away from me. Someone being attractive doesn’t make me unattractive. Someone being in a relationship doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of one.

I know all of that.

But knowing something and feeling it are apparently two very different things. I started noticing something in myself that I didn’t particularly like.

Resentment.

Not necessarily toward the people themselves. Most of them hadn’t done anything wrong. They were just living their lives. But I had reached a point where I couldn’t look at somebody else’s happiness without immediately using it as a measuring stick against my own.

And that was exhausting.

Then something happened that made me think about social media from another angle entirely. One night, I was DJing. I was doing something I genuinely enjoy, recording little pieces of the night like I normally would. Nothing about this video felt significant when I took it. It was just another moment I wanted to share.

Looking at it now, there is something strange about how ordinary it looks. I’m behind the decks. Music is playing. People are around me, talking, drinking, existing in the background. At the time, that was all it was to me.

Just a video.

But something happening quietly in the background was noticed by people watching my story. Those people interpreted what they saw and brought it to the attention of someone involved. What followed became something much bigger offline.

I don’t want to tell that story here because, ultimately, it isn’t completely mine to tell.

But being unintentionally caught somewhere in the middle of it stayed with me. Something I had recorded casually, without thinking twice about what was happening behind me, suddenly carried meaning I had never intended it to carry. And I kept thinking about that.

A camera can capture five seconds of somebody’s life without capturing anything that came before it or anything that happened afterwards.

It doesn’t capture the conversation. It doesn’t capture the context. It doesn’t capture what anybody was thinking. It simply captures whatever happened to be visible from one particular angle at one particular moment. But once those five seconds are online, people can look at them.

Interpret them.
Discuss them.
Send them to somebody else.
Point something out.
Create assumptions.

And sometimes those assumptions make their way back into people’s actual lives.

There was something uncomfortable about realising that. And then I realised I had been doing my own version of exactly the same thing.

Every time I looked at somebody attractive and decided they had something I didn’t.
Every time I saw a couple smiling together and assumed their relationship represented everything I was missing.
Every time somebody else’s carefully selected moment made me question whether I was enough.

I was also looking at fragments of people’s lives and creating an entire story from them.

I didn’t know what happened before those photos.
I didn’t know what happened afterwards.
I didn’t know whether the couple smiling at each other had argued twenty minutes earlier.
I didn’t know whether the person whose appearance made me insecure had spent that morning hating their own reflection.
I didn’t really know anything beyond what happened to appear on my screen.

And yet somehow I kept comparing their fragment to the entirety of my own life.
Maybe that’s one of the strangest things about social media. We all become observers of one another.

Everybody watching everybody.
Everybody interpreting everybody.
Everybody comparing.

Sometimes something completely ordinary becomes significant simply because enough people are looking at it.

And suddenly this thing that was supposed to be somewhere I posted photos, music, stupid little moments and pieces of my life felt incredibly heavy. I just didn’t want to participate in it for a while.

The strange thing is that I still want to share.

I still want to take pictures of my day.
I still want somewhere to put the random thoughts that come into my head.
I still want to document my DJ sessions, the songs I’m listening to, things I’ve discovered, places I’ve been, stupid little moments that probably mean nothing to anybody except me.

I don’t actually want to disappear.
I think I just don’t want to perform anymore.

And lately, I’ve been tired.
Not just physically tired.

I’ve been losing interest in things that normally make me feel like myself. Going to the gym. Reading. Cooking. Things I genuinely enjoy suddenly feel like things that require energy I don’t seem to have.

I’ve been sleeping more and somehow still waking up tired.
I’ve been withdrawing.
I’ve been more irritable.

And when my mind is already in that kind of place, maybe endlessly consuming carefully selected fragments of everybody else’s lives isn’t exactly helping.

So today, I deactivated my social media.

Not because I suddenly hate everyone.
Not because I’m making some grand statement about how social media is destroying society.
And not because I want people to wonder where I went.

I just think I need some distance.
I need somewhere I can experience my life without immediately wondering how it looks from somebody else’s screen.

Maybe that’s what this blog is going to be.

Social media always made me think about how other people would see what I posted.
Here, I want to think about how future me will see it.

Maybe years from now I’ll find this entry and laugh at how seriously everything felt.
Maybe I’ll barely remember what happened.
Maybe I’ll be in love.
Maybe I’ll feel completely comfortable with how I look.
Maybe I’ll have entirely different problems.

I don’t know.

But wherever I am when I eventually read this again, I hope I remember the person writing it.

The version of me who was exhausted, comparing himself to everyone, feeling like he wasn’t enough, and eventually realised that maybe he didn’t need to keep staring at the things that were making him feel that way.

The version of me who started wondering whether seeing more of everybody else’s lives was actually helping him understand the world better, or whether it was simply giving him more fragments to overthink.

So I logged out.

And instead of posting my life for everybody else to see,
I started writing it down for myself.