I barely go on the damn thing. But there is this one girl, who shall obviously remain nameless, that I find very attractive and I keep tabs on her. Okay. . . that sounded creepy, “keeping tabs” on somebody you don‘t even interface with, I’ll concede that, but it’s not like I go to her page daily, and obsessively think about her when I’m not on her page, refreshing the browser over and over checking for new pictures. God no! It’s more like a bi-weekly check up. Like getting a paycheque. Maybe I occasionally go to her boyfriends page to see other pictures of her as well, but come on, leave him out of it, this is about her.
I’m happy to report that as this divine Jewish woman from the GTA moves into her mid-twenties, whom I’ll refer to as M, her petite, well proportioned features light up every picture she’s in, making her friends, who are okay by comparison, look like Bruce Vilanch. With Aids.
M is still going steady with her boyfriend. Appears she’s been dating him for about a year because that’s how far back pictures of the two of them together go. Her boyfriend (who does not come across as a douche-nozzle, as nice as that would be. Sadly, he doesn’t have a thumb ring and/or a ponytail). Of course he’s from good stock--tall, nice wavy brown hair and clear skin. I expected as much; M would certainly not date any scrubs. Not on my watch.
By the way, who are you kidding? It’s not like you don’t look up old flames and former classmates to see you how stack up. Sitting behind your anonymous screen surreptitiously peeling back the curtain and taking a look. How can you not? Humans (and Canadians) are naturally curious, and our past lives are only a click away, so . . . what are you waiting for?
Let’s face it: we are a culture of cyber stalkers and we do it without even thinking. It’s not like I set out to find this woman--I accepted her sisters’ friend request and came across her rather organically (excuses excuses). I wasn’t intentionally looking for a beautiful Jewish woman to do bi-weekly Facebook checks on. Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.
Facebook: What a tool for
It’s just too easy nowadays for weirdos and creeps, innit? In the good old days, they (not we, I‘m not one of them!) would have to brave the bone shattering cold of a Saturday night in February peeping through windows and pulling on a flaccid penis trying to hid inside your body with an old pair of soft mittens. That’s so 90‘s. Enough already with all that heavy lifting! Once humans find a shortcut there’s no stopping us. It reminds me of that scene in True Stories where the fat rich lady is laying in bed being fed by an electronic spoon. If we have the means and the technology, well . . . make it so number one.
It’s digital, but our lives are so digitized that it’s even better than the real thing.
At this point I’ll address the elephant in the room. I have never, repeat never, masturbated to any pictures on her page. Maybe YOU do that, you sicko. Not for this cowboy. Maybe I’m a desensitized 21st century digital boy, but generally speaking, I need hardcore sex scenarios to get my rocks off, not some picture of a woman at a poetry reading, no matter how heavenly looking. Date and love and sire children with her? Yes. Jerk my crankshaft to? Negatori. Plus, M’s a good girl. Her pictures, like most seemingly normal women in the GTA, consist of M at her sister’s graduation from university, and on holiday in some tropical paradise with the whole extended clan, what looks like aunts and uncles and grandparents. And call me crazy, but it’s tough to get the poison out with Auschwitz survivors flanking the object of your desire. Very distracting.
* * *
One night, after months of watching her from afar, like Neil Young, but definitely not watching her every step and every breath, like Sting, I decided to reach out and make contact. I was stoned and drunk and just didn’t give a flying karate kick anymore. Though I resolved to make contact, I was still much too scared and sensible to send her a personalized message--like, umm . . . I’ve been watching you for a while and I just wanted to say that you’re totally fuckable; here’s my digitz. I tried a different approach: I sent her a link to my website without any accompanying message. One cup of anonymity with a sprinkling of mystery and a dash of intrigue. That’s me. The line up’s over here ladies. It was probably some article about getting head from a tranny, or smoking crack, or smoking a tranny cock, or sucking a crack pipe and smoking a tranny cock at the same time. I know, I know, kinda super lame for an introduction. The next morning when I woke up and turned on my computer with a clear head I couldn’t believe I actually reached out to her, albeit only digitally, across the vast expanse of cyberspace. Half of me was praying that there wouldn’t be a message from her in my inbox, that the cruel hands of actual love in the real world wouldn’t be able to go for my throat. The other half of me hoped that this was the beginning of our march towards marriage and true love, a happy life together achieving our goals and buying a home, raising children, reading the Sunday newspaper, being concerned about planet Earth, what we’re putting into our bodies, what the world we leave will be like for our kids . . .
I hesitantly opened up my ‘favourites’ tab and clicked on my hotmail account, fourth from the top, my mouth dry and head throbbing, clicker finger trembling over the mouse. Before the page loaded, with the blue circle on the screen going roundandroundandround, my overheated and impatient mind took off on a tangential daydream, allowing the fantasy of our potential future life take over.
They would be half Jewish, after all--our kids, that is--and religio-social-political decisions that will shape their young lives would need to be made. As parents it‘s our duty to nudge them in the right direction: do we celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, or some combination thereof? Maybe Chrismukkah? Or maybe Hanukkismas? Should they learn Hebrew as a second language, or French? Or Spanish? I can already see myself at a dinner party arguing vehemently for Israel against encroaching Palestinian territories and missiles--they have a right to defend themselves, ya know! Jesus would have wanted that land for the Israelites!
After years of love--five? Ten? Who knows--our union slowly, but inevitably, crumbles, as love in the real world is wont to do, and one night, after imbibing too much, as I am wont to do, we argue, and I drunkenly hurl a Menorah at her right at the throat--going for the kill shot. Eight candles of death spinning through the air like a pimped out ninja star and only barely missing her head, lodging firmly into the wall. She tearfully declares, “I’m taking Seth and Nina to a kibbutz, away from your tyranny!” And that’s the end of familial bliss, I think to myself, alone in the house, hung over as fuck, spackling the eight gashes in the wall and sipping on a morning beer, waiting for the mud to dry so I can sand ’er down.
I call M’s cell phone and immediately get her voicemail. I decide that the last message I ever leave as her better half will be in the form of a joke: “Do you know why Jewish women like circumcised men?” Dramatic pause.
“They like one third off.”
Click.
Divorce.
* * *
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that she didn’t get back to me--(sigh)
In today’s economy, who needs a restraining order, so I gathered my wits about myself and went back to gazing at my ethereal Jewish beauty from the telescopic confines of my computer screen, as if combing the skies of a distant galaxy . . . a galaxy full of buxotic Jewish girls, and half French, half Swedish girls, 50/50 where it counts!
At work one day I popped on to her page to make sure all was well in her world. A typical day; she was due for her bi-weekly check up. For whatever subconscious, inexplicably slippery and fleeting reason, I was assaulted by the futility of the whole enterprise. The feeling hit me like lightning. I mean, what could I possibly do if there was a death in the family, or some guy broke her heart? All I am able to do is click onto her Facebook page and piece together her life from the images she has posted and the comments that are left. We are still separated by a divide that the digital world can never bridge. If something tragic (or wonderful) happened, there’s no way for her to know that my heart would break (or glow) right along with hers, that if we’re lost, we are lost together. Well, I haven’t been to her page in months since that day.
M was the star of my Truman Show.
This is the eulogy.
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