Sail away

47. @expectations – Kit Reed

The title of this book is perfect. Expectations are what keep people hanging on to online relationships that are quite possibly bullshit when they don’t feel like they have anything to look forward to in real life (same thing in real life, really, although not speaking from personal experience, of course…). And being lied to by your fiancée about his suddenly-there children who hate you right before you move from a place you feel comfortable to a place you don’t know anyone with little to no support and those same kids who still hate you, well, what else is there to do but try and reach out to somewhere- and online, there are options.

Performative utterance creates those options in the StElene chat room and frankly, several aspects of this are very 1990s. I kept seeing fluttering curtains and dramatic lighting in an empty house in my head ala the “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” videos on MTV. But, obviously, the soundtrack is Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” or Enigma’s “Return to Innocence.” I trust next to nothing, so, anyone who claims to “understand” without ever knowing what my true vocal tone is would be suspect, but to Zan and Lark and Reverdy and Mireya, it seems to be their only outlet and they do not want to be alone enough to overlook many, many red flags and ruin their real lives too.

The ending is not perfect, but, in some respects reflects the appropriate ending of expectations. People who take their online life in a chat room (basically) way too seriously and then bring the formerly anonymous involved parties into real life are bound to find out it was never going to meet their expectations.

While I’m working on this, Thorfy is in this exact position, but after watching me for a while he is now asleep. I have not met his expectations of an exciting afternoon out of his house.