I Miss Talking Stages And Other Things
Warning: This article might be chaotic.
For a while now, I have been missing the good old 2go days. In truth, I miss 2go itself. I miss that I could join chatrooms, where people would be talking about different things. Sometimes, you would strike a cord of friendship with someone, and you would slide into their DMs, or they into yours, to continue the conversation. Eventually, the friendship would wither and die a natural death. But, Lord, I loved the thrill of it.
I loved talking to strangers and getting to know them intimately. For all I knew, they could be lying through their noses and making up a life they wished they lived instead of the one they actually did. But who cares? I lied, too. Sometimes, when I wanted to not be me, I told fantasies, too. And I wanted to not be me a lot.
I also miss that about the first two relationships I had. The first was a joke. I never met him. Hell! His name, Aberdeen-or-something-like-that, could have even been a lie. But I remember he was about four years older than my thirteen-or-fourteen-year-old self, and he loved to talk — maybe to impress me or something.
He was Muslim, northern, and said he was rich. He had a couple of dogs, too, and liked to talk about them a lot. I loved his Northern accent, and I could have listened to him talk all day. I wonder if he actually asked me out; I can’t remember how that really went.
We “broke up” when he started asking one of my friends out, too. God, thinking about all of this now almost has me rolling on the floor. My amateur heart was shattered. But I picked myself up quite quickly. It is not like I was expecting marriage. I believe what truly hurt me was that the breakup had not come from me.
The next was long distance, too, but we met a couple of times. He always called, and our conversations were endearing. I think back to that time, and I cringe. I am not proud of how that relationship ended at all. He was a good person through and through. I was a child.
My point is that these men were talkers. Not the kind that makes you want to cut off your ears and run or the kind where you keep making non-committal noises. No, these men knew how to have and hold conversations that led nowhere and everywhere.
I have that in some friendships: phone conversations that can go on for up to three hours. Chats that start with “Hey, what’s good?” and keep going until you check the time and see it’s past one in the morning. You don’t even know when or how time flies because you are lost in them. These are the stuff of dreams and fantasies.
Now, we are grown. We have better things to do. We have two to three jobs. There’s social media with enough content to grasp and keep your attention. Who has time to just talk? If anyone invests that much time in you, there is a high possibility that they want to subtract your layers and explore your core. Rarely, quite rarely, would you see anyone who wants to keep talking to you for hours without checking their phones once in two minutes.
It makes me hate smartphones.
It makes me wish I lived in the era of letters, in the era of picnics and park dates, where people would meet to talk about books, songs, plays, and ideologies. Where you could listen to people talk and get lost in the way they speak, their mannerisms, how they roll their Rs and pinch their Ts. Then you would go back home, and something they said would play over in your mind, and you would catch yourself smiling.
Once, I asked someone what he wanted out of a relationship with me, and he said, “I want us to be able to talk about everything and anything.” It’s been about six years since he said that. I doubt he even remembers that he did, but I haven’t.
I doubt I ever will. At that time, that was the sweetest thing anyone had ever told me. I saw it and still see it as an offering of everything he is — an offering of his mind and time. Because I know how chaotic my mind gets. I get random thoughts that would make someone twitch and wonder, “Is all fine upstairs?” Having someone offer their mind and random thoughts while offering to accept mine, too? It’s the stuff of true love.
This craze for conversations might not mean much to you. There is even a possibility that it was a careless declaration because I don’t think I have ever told him what he said and how it made me feel. But I will never forget how that offer made me feel and the lives I have lived in my head based on that offer.
I long for the days of 2go and Eskimi again. I long for a space like that. If you know anyone like that, please leave your recommendations in the comment section.
Hey, if you enjoyed reading this, Thank you for staying till the end. Hit the clap button hard (50 times, really). What do you think about ‘talking stages’? If you disagree, let me know why in the comments. I’ll be waiting.
