Social Media Disinterest Syndrome

I have now come to believe that social media is extremely detrimental to my mental health.

Tweets with questions and clever thoughts get no response. Instagram posts where I try to say something honest and, in my mind, important, get no response. I try to be involved. I use the hashtags I think will send the tweet or Instagram pic to a community of people who would be willing and maybe even excited to start a conversation. Nothing happens. 

I call the feeling I feel when there's no response: Social Media Disinterest Syndrome. It's a heaviness. I can feel its weight depress upon my body. I can physically feel it change my mood.

Popularity has always been a desire. Crucify me if you want to. I wasn't popular in high school. I was the queer, the faggot, the joke. I was friends with some of the popular kids, but I never ascended to their ranks.

Why should this still matter to me? I don't know. I keep asking myself that question. I've been out of high school for 30 years and that past should have no relevance for the adult I've become. But try as I may to fight it, it does. I suffer from a lack of confidence and an inability to validate myself. I fear my own opinion being the wrong opinion. I fear criticism of said opinion and the confrontation that could follow. Could. I'm living in fear of something that hasn't, and mostly doesn't, fucking happen.

I want to be seen, but I want to hide more. I want to lift up my voice in protest but I want to remain under the radar.

Twitter and Instagram are reminders every day of my lack of popularity and an apparent inability to connect with people. And when I think about connection I am reminded that I don't connect easily IRL either.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome affects me every day. Yet I keep putting myself through it, hoping this day will somehow be different. If you're reading this, and you clicked on the link via Twitter, then you already realize I'm putting myself through it again today.

How many of us hope that strangers will validate us and fulfill our cravings? I know I'm not the only one. Likes and retweets and even comments create a dopamine effect.

More often than not I wish for the courage to leave my phone at home, or at least in my bag, and to disengage from all of it. I just want to deactivate it all like I deactivated my Facebook.

Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm out of touch. Maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. Maybe I'm just not that interesting.

Maybe my expectations are just too high. This always leads to disappointment.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome is a real thing for me. I am living with it...or surviving it. I don't know. It's exhausting.