Living alone diaries #14; social media, soulmate friendships, and the upcoming Apple event
God, I need to pee.
Okay, now I’m ready to write.
It’s been an extremely rainy week in Jos, and its bordering on annoying, because it rains at the times when its most inconvenient. Then the cold that comes with it? My god.
I’m currently in sweats and a hoodie, wrapped in my duvet as I type this. The truth is, I’m not really feeling like writing, but I have to because obviously I need to post an entry.
I really just want to go for a month-long vacation in some country that’s not Nigeria, and just relax and recalibrate; almost everything about this country stresses me out. Last week I bought a pack of macaroni for #400, and this week I went back to that very same shop and its #450.
????
Like, what’s actually going on in this country? I ask myself this numerous times a day and it's still a valid question because what is actually going on, bro?
I’m listening to manifestation frequencies (search it up) as I write this, and I know it's very weird, but they help when I need to focus or relax, but don’t want silence.
It’s a new month, and again, it's crazy how fast time is flying? Were now at the ninth month of the year. Remember when we were in June, saying the year was halfway over? Time is flying, damn.
This is good because it means I’ll soon be done with National Service, but it's also scary because after this, what’s next for me? Like, that’s when I’ll have to start really living you know? Money, bills, more responsibilities, stuff like that. Thinking about it just makes me anxious, because it's not that far away. Also, the fact that I’ll have to go back to living at home, which I am not looking forward to at all.
Sigh, I need to get my money up.
For some reason this week, I’ve really been completely disinterested in social media.
Like its just started holding less and less appeal for me in general.
I think because I’m alone so much of the time, I’ve taken to social media to fill the void of actual physical social interaction I have in my life, and so I’m almost always on some sort of social media app and its honestly just become draining to me.
You know how some people go out and dress nice and take pictures and post them? I don’t feel the desire to take pictures or post. Even when I went out with my friends when I was in Abuja last month, I looked good and I felt good, and I was having a great time, but I just felt zero compulsion to take pictures of myself or my food or the people around me, the one video I made of my friends felt like I was doing it out of obligation; like “damn this whole outing and you didn’t post/document it in any way at all”, so I took a video and posted it.
It was when my best friend asked me to send her pictures I’d taken of myself that I realized, wow, I didn’t take any selfies or pictures.
It just holds almost zero appeal for me now, posting myself or my life on social media; it's too much effort, you want people to think your life is perfect and you’re having an amazing time and things are going great. For me, now, even when things are perfect and going great, and also when they aren’t, I feel no desire to post about it. It just does nothing for me.
I’m actually happy with this, because there was a point where I was super concerned about my social media image, and having a certain amount of likes and interactions, and being seen in a certain way or light. Sometimes, I would actually be upset if I posted a picture and it didn’t get as many interactions as I wanted, I would spend so long making sure that all the content I put out looked perfect and aesthetic and all, so much so, that I would get jealous of my friends who had bigger audiences and more interactions.
I look back at that Ahmad now and I feel bad for him. Why did I feel like that was so important? Why were the interactions I received from random people on the internet so important to me? Why did I want to be validated by this?
It's so crazy. Now that I’m completely out of that headspace, it's easier to see that I was in a spiral headed for disaster.
Now, if/when I do post any pictures of myself or my life — it’s been months — I post them because I like them, I post them for, mostly, me. I don’t care about how many people like or comment, I don’t care about how they look to other people or if people think I’m hot or not, I just find it hard to be conscious about that anymore.
I think it’s because I’m way more self-confident in how I look and the person that I am now, than I was a few years ago. It’s like, I know I look great, I know I’m dressed well, why do I need to post that for people to tell me what I already know? Why am I offering myself up on a platter for people to scrutinize? When I could just enjoy the moment and be happy?
What’s this compulsion to show everyone that your life is amazing or that you’re hot or that you have money or something, and not just actually live it?
What’s the point, if it's not primarily for me?
I still love my Instagram, even though I haven’t posted for months now, because as an artist, curating my Instagram feed and posts is a creative outlet of some sorts, and sometimes I go and look at it and admire my “work”, but even then, I don’t care about the things I used to care about so much before, and I’m very glad.
I’m listening to Daniel Caesar’s “Freudian”
Phenomenal body of work.
It gives me such nostalgia because the year after it came out was the year I met my best friends, and the only year I was in the university of Lagos.
I met my them at a time where I didn’t know anything about who I was or what I liked, I was still suffering from a horrible friendship that was dragging me down and I didn’t even know it at the time.
I firmly believe that good, solid friendships are the most important relationships any human being can hope to have. Good friends will be there for you through it all and even after.
Even though we’re far apart and living different lives, I have never for one second doubted their love for me and their intentional and dedicated approach to our relationships — individually and together. They taught me that it was okay to be who I was and feel the things I felt, coming from a place where most of my emotions were invalidated by both family and “friends”, it was life changing to find a group of people that made me feel heard and seen and accepted.
I have no regrets apart from one, and I think about it a lot; I wish I cherished the time we had to spend together, where we used to go to school together every day and do everything together. I wish I knew that in such a short time, our lives would go in such different directions, so that I could just…enjoy it more intentionally.
I genuinely believe that finding relationships like that is something that doesn’t happen to everyone, and I’m so grateful that I have them.
I’m not crying.
Apart from battling my loneliness, I’ve also been excited about the upcoming apple event. It’s happening this Wednesday at 6pm. If you don’t know (i.e., you live under a rock), every year, Apple has a presentation event where they unveil new devices, software and just generally update the world on the things they’ve done and are doing, and since the pandemic, they’ve been hosting live on YouTube, as well as in person, with the relaxation of pandemic restrictions.
And I’ve watched everyone religiously.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m quite interested in technology and certain aspects of science (mostly AI and Biology), so this is very exciting to me.
It's also funny because I probably won’t have the money to upgrade most of my devices till probably next year, but I just enjoy knowing these things, nonetheless.
If you haven’t listened to Freudian already, I highly recommend it.
Till next week.
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