Sometimes you have to lie.
I mean, not all the time. And not about big things. But socially.
Sometimes.
It’s just easier. Or politer.
Or sometimes even god damn essential.
It’s a bit like watching green-screen. You know that what you’re seeing isn’t actually happening, it was all super imposed in some studio somewhere, but for the purposes of what you’re watching, it just helps to further the story along quicker if you see a man flying through the air on a dragon than explaining exactly how he got to Mordor.
It’s the same with lying.
“Kelsey, did you borrow my dress/eat the last cookie/ accidentally drive over my motor-bike?”
I’m not going to return the dress (if it suits me) and confessing to my crime won’t bring the cookie or the crumpled motorbike back. So I just further the story along by saying no and changing the subject so that life can return back to normal.
Except this method doesn’t always work at job interviews. Especially not when the job you’re going for is totally out of your comfort zone. And definitely not when someone is asking you if you know what “metadata” is.
I was at Broadcasting House, London, being interviewed for a possible placement at Radio 4 Interactive.
“Er, no.” I said, clearing my throat. “I do not know what… um, microdata, is.”
“Metadata.” The man said promptly, as it began to dawn on me that I was probably going to be sacked from the placement before I even got the job. “Do you use facebook?”
I nodded.
“Tweetdeck?” Nod.
“Tumblr?” Nod.
“So you use the internet quite a lot then?”
The butterflies in my chest began to relax as I realised that maybe I hadn’t blown it. While I’d never, ever, consider myself a computer whizz, I do have a wide range of experience in social networking sites. For a bit of a strange reason. And it’s kind of a weird thing, for both parties, so I’ll just come right out and say it.
I’ve been talking to an online stranger for ten years.
It’s not like I’ve purposely been keeping track of the time, but those are the facts. And once you get the weirdness of the situation out the way, it’s really quite refreshing.
We were both blank, faceless strangers. We didn’t know the first thing about each other – he could have been stereotypical-fifty-year-old, child-grooming-paedophile, and I could have been eighty-seven-year-old-crazy-cat-lady. Suddenly, our real lives actually became the most interesting thing that we could learn from each other.
There was nothing to be gained from slipping in a few social lies – like I was a size ten, not a twelve, or that I didn’t understand the fundamental principles of algebra, and instead used my maths lessons as hourly therapy sessions with my best friend to talk about boys. Instead, all I actually wanted to say was the truth.
And I mean the whole truth.
Because there comes a certain freedom with talking to a stranger, and once I’d started, I could hardly stop.
It all came tumbling out.
I talked about my relationships, which haircut I was getting, what possessed me to date my ex’s, who I didn’t like at school, why I thought Carrie Bradshaw should have got with Aiden, not Big. Even my grandest, most carefully thought out life-plans to foster troubled teenagers when I became a grown up and save the whales with Greenpeace (which is almost the same as being a Trainee at the Beeb, right?).
He talked about music, and books, and the girls he liked. He was fifteen and in love with a girl called Alice who wouldn’t give him the time of day, but whose hair he said smelled like peaches. It was great because when I turned fifteen and began dating myself, this thing called the mobile phone had really taken off. My online metaphorical big brother was no longer confined to the computer. I remember once being mid-date and sending out a frantic text saying:
“Quick! He’s asking which bands I like, what do I say to sound impressive!?”
I then awaited an instant response from my internet pal, while I flicked my hair in the poor boy’s direction, which I’d rubbed peach scented bubble bath on (the only peach thing I had) before leaving the house.
“Greenday, Muse, Pearl Jam. Probably not The Dixie Chicks or Tatu. Though Tatu are ace.”
There were plans to meet, of course. We both went to university, and discovered what it meant to have independent freedom, student loans and endless summers. Sadly, both our lives took us to separate corners of the globe and some years into the friendship, I mentally closed the door on the possibility of meeting.
We didn’t need to.
Instead, we remained content with our interactive world. We had Hotmail, Facebook, MSN, Bebo, Skype, mobile phones, webcams and keyboards – who says communication is dead?
If anything, with the advancement of technology came the broadening of our friendship. I remember my excitement when his sister won a webcam in a dancing competition, which meant I could finally put a moving, albeit pixelated, face to the person I spent so much time typing to. We had hours of fun trying to understand each other’s accents when we both picked up computer microphones, as he’s Irish and I’m Welsh.
When we both finally grew up and left the comfort of uni, got jobs and found we could no longer stay up and talk all night about random crap, naturally we didn’t speak as often as we had done when we were teenagers. Msn had died, and like most others we moved into the land of Facebook messaging to keep track of each other’s mile stone life events.
Which is why I was so shocked when I got a message, not long after my Interactive placement interview:
“Hey, guess what! I’m coming to England. What do you think, would you say it’s about time we met?”
It was like a ton of bricks to the face.
My interactive, non-existent person wanted to meet.
It’s one thing talking to a stranger online, but it’s definitely something else to have them step out of the computer and sit down next to you. Even though I always knew, deep down, there was a person at the other end of my keyboard rants, I just kind of…
Forgot…
After all, all I’d had in front of me was a screen.
How much do screens remember about personal details you might have disclosed over ten freaking years? I’d told him practically everything! Things I just wouldn’t tell someone who was sitting next to me!
And besides, what if he really was a fifty year old paedophile and this was all some kind of weird, elaborate ten year scam to try and groom me?
No. That wouldn’t be right – I’m twenty three, for Christ’s sake.
At least I could prove I wasn’t an eighty year old cat lady…
Oh god.
He’d definitely know I wasn’t a size ten.
It turned out that his sister, Claire, was moving to England for a short time on a job placement, and so he was coming over to lend her a hand lugging her stuff. Coincidentally, it happened to be the very same week I started my new placement at Interactive.
For the first time ever, we’d be in the same spot of the globe at the same time.
We decided to meet in a crowded pub.
(OK, it wasn’t actually the plan to meet at the pub... they gave me a meeting point and I couldn’t find it, and in the end I took so long they ended up ducking into the nearest pub and waiting for me there. But if I were talking to you face to face right now, this is a fine example of a white lie I would tell in order to move the story along…)
At first, when I couldn’t see them, I thought it was game over. I’d either missed them, or he’d seen me, realised I was some kind of loon and jumped on the next flight home.
It turned out he was standing at the bar, right next to me.
“Wow…” I said, totally shell-shocked. “You’re in 3D!”
My friend of ten years, who I’d never met.
I’d say that was pretty much the weirdest moment of my life.
Ever.
He introduced me to his sister Claire and for a few awkward minutes no one really knew what to say. After all, there wasn’t much ground we hadn’t already covered in ten years. We pretty much knew all there was to know about each other. Would launching in to a conversation about my life seem strange? How much would he remember?
Should I mention the weather or something?
“How’s work?” he asked, politely.
“Oh, it’s er, great!” I said smiling.
“What do you do?” asked Claire, who genuinely looked interested.
“It’s er,” I began to fumble, “computers…”
There wasn’t much more I could say. The guy opposite me had listened to me drone on about how useless I was at technology for the best part of a decade. He was far more qualified to be talking on the subject than I was, and we both knew it.
For a moment, I thought my deepest fear had come true. That by meeting him, we’d somehow ruin the friendship.
“That’s cool,” grinned Claire.
That’s when I realised that Claire probably knew nothing about my life. She was safe ground to talk to! Like a normal person! We could have a great ‘getting to know you’ conversation in this nice little pub, whereby, neither one knew anything about the other. Fantastic!
Except, I kind of did know a little about hers…
But that was also weird. So, for the sake of social normality, I would pretend.
“Yeah it is!” I beamed. “What are you studying at university?”
A few beers on and conversation was flowing. All the worries I’d had about meeting my friend had totally disappeared. They were both normal, actual people, and I was enjoying my night. So much so, that I began to tell them about an incident that had happened earlier that week, where a friend-but-not-friend of mine had been unfortunately sacked from her job.
“Yeah, it’s such a shame.” I sighed. “It’s so difficult to find anything these days, I feel really sorry for her…”
I trailed off. My internet friend (who I’ll refer to as Adam, now that he’s a real person) had a funny look on his face.
“Gosh, that’s terrible.” said Claire, and I nodded sympathetically.
“She’s a great girl though, so I’m sure she’ll find something…” I said shrugging my shoulders and gazing for a moment, as if I was thinking of her terrible plight.
Adam began to snigger.
“Hey…” I said, puzzled. “What’s so—“
“Kelsey, she’s a ghoul!” he laughed. “You can’t stand the girl!”
My mouth hung open for a moment as I began to remember all the conversations I’d had with him. Every time she’d ever backstabbed or wrong footed me. All the things I’d said about the horrible, snidey, cow.
Shit.
“Hey, and I always meant to ask you,” he said, rearranging himself to face me. “What about that time…”
Oh god.
He remembers.
He remembers it all…
I mentally tried to scan through everything I might have ever said to him. Drunken student nights, where I’d come home and poured my heart out about some boy who didn’t love me. Sober days, where I was being rattled by boys who I didn’t love, and everything in between. There had to be some safe topic.
I changed the subject fast.
“So,” I said, trying to compose myself. “How are things with…”
Adam’s face began to flush. He looked over at Claire, as if they were sharing something.
Wait a minute… was there something he wasn’t telling me?
Claire began to look amused. That’s when I twigged. She was as much his personal lie detector, as he was mine. Because I guess in life it’s natural to want to edit stuff, to try and make ourselves look better. We do it all the time. We gloss over the crap stuff about ourselves, like the fact we look great in a dress because we’re wearing four pairs of spanks. It’s human nature to want to present our best side – like saying we eat a healthy fruit breakfast every morning, and not mentioning that it’s just a banana muffin from Starbucks.
But all that disappears when you’re with someone who knows you really well. When you’re out with your best friend, or your sister, or this random bloke you’ve been chatting to online…
Well, maybe not quite.
But still, it was a pretty weird situation to be in – sitting around a table, where no one could lie. Not even little ones about people you have to pretend to get on with, even though you secretly think they’re a bit of a numpty.
I met up with Adam and Claire for a few days after that first meeting at the pub, until I finally had to go back to my job. Claire had stayed at home to watch the final minutes of Doctor Who (I'd dutifully pointed out which scenes had been greenscreened, having worked on the show), while Adam walked me to my bus.
We carried on chatting, like we were friends of old, until we got to the bus stop.
Normally we’d end the conversation with a ‘Speak soon!’ or ‘I won’t be online tomorrow, so catch you later!’ But there was no ‘See you soon” in this relationship. Who knows whether we’d ever actually see each other again? What do you say?
I was wondering how to end things, when Adam turned to me and said “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” My stomach did a little flip as I ran through all the things he might say –
This was weird. Do you think it’s better if we don’t speak anymore…?
Did my disguise fool you? I’m really a mass murderer…
Why do you tell people you’re a size ten? When you’re blatantly…
“Uh, nope, ask away!” I said nervously.
“We’ve said a lot of things over the years,” he said, looking at me. “Not all of it, that great…”
That’s when it fully hit home that he did really remember everything. Even if over the course of us meeting, he’d been too polite to say anything. When I was a teenager, I was my own harshest critic, and I didn’t make life easy for myself. I knew there were things that I’d said that just wouldn't normally talk about, that I haven’t told anyone. The kind of thing you can only really say to a faceless stranger. And even then, they’re not things I’ve ever said out loud. They’re just things I’ve typed into the nether of cyberspace. And at the same time, I realised how lovely it was of him to have taken the time to get to know me, to remember all these silly little things, for all these years, and still want to meet me.
“Are you happy?” he said, looking at me.
My mind swirled. There were a million things I was happy about. I have a great job, a great family, a wonderful boyfriend. I was happy that I wasn’t still trying to struggle on as a size ten trapped in a size-much-larger’s-body. I was happy that every time I got off the tube and began the walk home to my little flat in London, I see the skyline of canary wharf and think how it hardly looks real. Like it’s just been something green-screened and dropped in. Like it’s not part of my life. It takes my breath away, every time, without fail.
It’s the kind of thing people ask all the time, without really caring what the answer is, yet somehow, it was one of the most personal, honest questions anyone had ever asked me. The kind of question I usually relied on using my keyboard to answer for me while I hid behind a computer screen.
But there was nothing there for me to type on, or click, or anything. For all our wonderful technology today, there was no telepathic machine so that he could find out the answer. Somehow it was like as if he’d asked some kind of taboo question by asking it out loud, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether things would be the same, that we wouldn’t share things with each other now that we had met face to face.
Even still, it was a question that required an answer. I nodded my head, just as my bus arrived.
“Yep,” I said. “I’m honestly, really happy.”
"Good." he nodded, and I got on the bus.
I waited until we turned around the corner until I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and opened up a Facebook message.
“I wasn’t always happy though, and it took me a long time to get here. So thank you, for always being there for me, no matter how weird it was.”
The truth was, I didn’t know how the meeting had gone. Perhaps the whole weekend, Adam and Claire had just been passing the time with me. Behaving politely, telling little white lies just because it was easier.
Politer.
Or even god damn necessary.
It wasn’t until I received a message back in a familiar online font:
“That was the weirdest thing I had ever done…that was weird, right?”
And that's when I knew that our wonderfully weird and unconventional friendship would be just fine.
In fact, we've already started making arrangements for our next meet up, in March 2023.
