Odes to Facebook friends whom I don’t know

There are many people on Facebook whom I’m friends with whom I haven’t talked with in a long time. This post isn’t about them. This post is dedicated to the people whom I’m friends with and don’t remember at all.

You spiky hair radical you. We live a stone’s throw from each other, yet I have no clue who you are or under what circumstances I met you. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve looked at your profile photos? I just want to see one more picture, any picture, any glimmer into your inner world. You’re not the one who stood on the toilet, are you? Those girls were so mean to you when all you wanted was to share your secrets.

You like singing, it’s clear, but who doesn’t? Let no one take that gift away from you, but also is there anything else to your life? I imagine you eating Totino’s pizza rolls with cheap chardonnay curled up on a Friday evening next to an annoying small dog only you think is cute. Loneliness is your curse. You will not figure it out in this lifetime.

Do you even have a job? Seriously.

I saw you and your friend in Georgia, where my ancestors are from. No, the other Georgia — yes, that one, where Jason went for the Golden Fleece. You seem lost, boy. You seem like me four years ago, drunkenly stumbling down the streets, lost in patriotic romances. Your flushed rosy cheeks are a dishonor. You’re lost, boy.

Alright, hotshot. You’re the one who’s done everything right in life, but what do you have to show for it? After all, I don’t even know who you are. Do you live indoors? Outdoors? Shrubland or forest kinda guy? Thoughts on kudzu? Are you kudzu? Hard to tell sometimes who is growing and who is on who.

Good God you’re beautiful. Who the hell are you? I think you’re married. Or are you not but it’s a Jewish thing? I’m also married, maybe we know each other.

You’re the perfect example of someone I don’t know. The perfect example! Who even are you? Last time I thought of you, I thought, this guy is like Missouri — who thinks of Missouri? Except that’s your secret, isn’t it? Because whenever anyone thinks of, “what’s the thing that we never think of,” it’s always Missouri. And you.

The ghosts of my former roommate and that one weirdo got together, made a baby and had you. There you are. Do you have any idea how many times I have searched for your first name? On Facebook, on Google, on Yahoo, on Altavista. On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen. But you will never be that guy, will you? Because that guy was a lost boy who got so lost that I think he disappeared into a puff of cocaine and women who reminded him of his mother. You? The only thing I see you disappearing is your face into pizza. I need to get over you.

I’m going to be real here for a second: you’re not that annoying fundamentalist Christian lady, are you? Or her son? Because I can’t get past the suspicion that somehow you two are the same even though I’ve never seen any post from you at all, ever, about any topic. I must have taught you once. If I did, you were probably a little shit — and I probably loved you for it. You didn’t know anything about real life then and you probably haven’t learned it by now.

Good LORD I have no idea who you are. Don’t even pretend.

You’re hovering, I can tell you that much. Hovering between me knowing you and me not. The truth is that you were rolled out like some royal decree, like some gilded pharaoh whom I was supposed to venerate and obey and obsequate myself before like a scarab. I’ve resented you for it ever since and I ever will. Don’t push me.

Not only do I not know you, I don’t even know the people who know you, especially those who claim to know you best. You are so obscure that not even the salt that came from the bottom of the sea used in the Punic Wars to ruin Carthage is less known to me than you are. I’m practically writing to you lying on a bed of salt, relatively speaking, given how obscure you are. Did you lose weight?

Turns out you’re my brother-in-law!

I really should know the both of you, I really should. I should be separating you two, giving you each separate odes, paying you the respect that I’ve paid all the other unmemorables. But here’s the thing: Facebook put your names right together as a double feature, so I’m going to treat you both as a double feature because The Algorithm Doesn’t Lie. The truth is that I don’t see either of you moving past an extremely awkward first base with each other before realizing that the other one is gay. But you will be such great friends after that first moment — unless you already know each other and know that you have nothing to give the other. Yes, come to think of it, I’m almost certain that you’re both friends on Facebook and, in the same way that I relate to either of you, neither of you remember each other at all.

Your name may pose as a Flemish philosopher but you, sir, are no Flemish philosopher. Everyone says you’ve got a heart of gold, but what do the people who are closest to you think? More importantly, is anyone where you’re from actually close to each other, or do they just put on the happy smiles charade because life is just too unbearable without that lie? I think you and I both know the answer to that one. Honestly, I don’t even know how you wound up here.

Were you the racist one…???

How did so many beautiful women find their way onto the trash heap of my memory? Pinnacle of motherhood, you, like some slice of apple crumble cake from a high-intensity Windex commercial. People say that America runs on smiles and bombs but you can’t see those smiles without Windex, that’s for sure. But in twenty five lifetimes you will be reincarnated as a baby who will scream nonstop for the first three years of your life. Your mother will come to hate you and you will forever be a seeker, a searcher. Our paths will never cross, but your eternal soul will forever have my deep and undying respect.