In praise of banal little posts.

I've not stopped posting on Facebook* (and occasionally on Twitter) even though my blog is really anemic right now.  I seem only to have little, short things to say.

Facebook is derided for good reason because it's full of people announcing ordinary things.  I daresay that a large number of the FB posts I see fall into the following categories:

• I just got off work!  Or I will soon.  Or I won't for a while, poor me.
• I'm having an alcoholic beverage!
• I'm about to eat something!  Here is a picture of it.
• Can you believe this interaction I just had with another human being in the real world? 
• I have children.
• I saw something in the news, and I have an opinion about it.

You know, I don't mind this.  Banal small talk is much of what our loose networks of relationships are built on; some more strongly, some less, and you don't find out the strength until, out of necessity, something more than banal is called for.

But you know what?  It's like that in real life even with normal, three-dimensional relationships.  The more you see someone, the smaller the talk can be sometimes.  

I have been co-schooling with H. for years and years now, and a lot of our conversations are about something she cooked for dinner two days ago, or what small thing is driving me crazy, or our plans for the weekend.  Occasionally we get to sit down and plot out next year's literature class or troubleshoot one another's battle against chaos, but mostly it's the little updates.  Staying in touch with each other and each other's children.

I have been married for fourteen years now, a good marriage if I may say so myself, and some weeks it seems as if the exact same exchanges happen across the breakfast table day after day after day.  They are for the most part happy, loving exchanges that reinforce the essential goodness of the phenomenon that is us.  Some of them involve inquiries about when the minivan will be taken in for service and whether our daughter was given her medication on time yesterday.  

Internet friends, it's okay if the only post of substance you made this week was to explain the new recipe you tried.  (Even better if you said what you did for side dishes and how you got your kids to eat it without complaining.) I'm paying attention.  

Sometimes the mommyblogs can get you down, what with all the exuberant bragging about things that went well.  FB seems to be more populated with the wry wisecracks about normal life.  I kind of like that. 

Once I visited the home of someone I knew well from the Internet, someone whom I thought of as kind of an amazing person, a superstar in the crunchy homeschooling breastfeeding homebirthing world.   It was the first time I'd met her in real life, and she had invited me and my kids for lunch while I was in town.  I was a little bit in awe, to tell you the truth, as I knocked on her door.

She welcomed us in and performed an act of generous hospitality for us for which I will forever be grateful:  she served us boxed macaroni and cheese.

("Annie's Naturals," of course.  But still.)

And that business being out of the way, we sat down and had a great conversation, getting on with the business of knowing and getting to know.  Which is about not worrying whether your presentation is perfect or your wit sparkling:  it's jumping off from the points that present themselves in your ordinary life, seeing where they can take you.

 

 

 

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*I intentionally keep my friend list pared down on FB, and regularly prune it.  I am unlikely to approve a friend request from a blog reader unless we have met in real life or otherwise Go Way Back (or unless I am a squealy fan of your own blog, a category specially created for Simcha Fisher).  It's nothing personal; that's just what I use it for.  You're welcome to follow me on Twitter where my handle is my real first and last name, no spaces, but I'm not very active there as of yet.

Comments

[Kate]

I feel like I do know you after 10 years of interacting in various ways online. :-) Which is kind of funny, come to think of it - it's the same sense of familiarity that you get from seeing the same neighborhood faces and making small talk in the grocery store year after year!

[MrsDarwin]

I like small talk. Life gets tendentious when people feel like they need to pontificate all the time. And I really like the "hanging out" feeling of Facebook -- I live far away from a lot of my friends, so the feeling of being able to drop is is cheering to me. I even like knowing what people are eating!

[JMB]

I agree Mrs. Darwin, small talk is good. It's light and fun and if I need pontification, I can flip on the news.