The other day I was on Facebook having a lovely conversation with a nice man I didn’t know very well who had recently done a show I felt was worthy of compliment. In the middle of what was originally intended to be a very short conversation, another chat window popped up, this one from a close friend who was Very Angry Indeed. Her husband, who I had never liked anyway, (how can you like anyone who took a rugby pause during his own wedding reception to watch a Bulls game?) had forgotten her birthday. She was almost apoplectic with rage, her Facebook chat moving faster than the Dow Jones every time POTUS sends a tweet.
I finished off my conversation with the nice man and turned my full attention to my friend, sending my own character reference for her husband to her in the form of the word ‘Dick’.
It went into the wrong chat box.
It went into the chat box of the nice man.
While I wouldn’t have sold a kidney to take it back, I would have considered bartering off a less essential organ.
I apologised instantly. I blamed Facebook. I blamed my friend's husband. I blamed a world where men were allowed to forget their wives’ birthdays because of gender inequality. I grovelled.
The nice man was extremely nice. He said he thought it was hilarious.
Meanwhile, my angry friend was getting progressively angrier at my slower-than-usual responses. I paused my chat with the nice man and turned my full A-type Lioness attention on her.
“He’s a bastard and you don’t even care!!!!” she said with a very sad emoticon.
“I’m so stunned at his behaviour, I don’t actually know what to say,” I responded with perfect truth and a heart.
That seemed to do the trick. She was mollified. I turned up the heat.
“I hope you’re going to give it to him,” I wrote furiously.
“He deserves to know how awful he’s made you feel.”
The other chat box popped open. It was the nice man.
“That was like a scene from 30 Rock!” he said.
I went back to being charmingly apologetic.
“You’re terribly kind, I’m so sorry.”
We exchanged a few words about the show itself and the disappointing buffet afterwards. He made a joke about hunter gatherers and how short crust pastry brings out the worst in people. I parried with an anecdote about a lady who tried to sneak apple pie into her handbag. We sent laughing emoticons.
“Sam? SAM?”
Oh dear. Back to rage.
“I’m right here! I’m trying to be supportive without ripping X a new one.”
“Oh thank goodness, I thought you’d gone.”
“I can’t believe you’d say that!” I said, agreeing with the nice man that a mutual acquaintance did indeed have very creepy children. “I’m totally here for you!”
“Good, because I need your advice. What should I say to him?”
“You have to be honest,” I typed, ignoring my own failure to follow this instruction.
“I’d have a discussion about priorities. Because your birthday should be one for him. You’re a beautiful person and he doesn’t deserve you.”
There. That should do it. It was becoming very stressful being two people at once.
You’re not being two people at once, I told myself defensively. You’re being funny and charming and you’re being caring and kind. Yes, said a little voice, but you’re doing it at the same time with two people who don’t know they are in a group chat and neither of them is getting your full attention and they don’t know that either. It’s disingenuous.
And because no-one wants to be disingenuous, least of all me, I decided to bring the whole silly thing to a close. That’s the problem with Facebook, there may be only one person with you in the chat box but there are an infinite number of chat boxes for you to be in at the same time. And that involves a schizophrenic amount of energy-splitting.
“We must do coffee sometime and I will apologise in person,” I said cheerily to the nice man.
The angry friend replied.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, you give the best advice!” she said.
And sent a smiley face.
