Читать книгу Click - L. Smyth - Страница 19

When I was in my room I lay in bed and looked at my laptop. While I scrolled through social media feeds, I thought about our conversation. That led me to click on her profile again. I went straight to her photos, put them in a separate tab, and began to flick through. But this time rather than concentrating on how artsy and beautiful she looked, or how many likes each photo had accrued, I noticed her habits of virtual response.

One of the things I’d admired about Marina was that she didn’t care about her online status – I loved how she was above it. The way that she ignored her timeline activity but still had loads of tagged pictures, etc, had struck me as classy and aspirational, yes. But there was something else: it fundamentally justified her behaviour towards me. I took her abuse because I accepted that that was who she was. She was mean because she didn’t solicit or give approval. From me or to me. From anyone or to anyone. Online or offline.

But now I noticed, looking at her online activity more closely, that there was something she did do regularly. She might not have commented, tagged, or uploaded anything. She might not have liked posts. But she did like comments. She only liked the witty comments, made by people whose profiles – I hovered my mouse over the names – were as stylish and elusive as hers. Far from being detached, her profile was carefully monitored. It was not that she was above being vain – she was just vain about seeming vain.

I closed the lid of my laptop. I went to sleep.