Victoria Cooke - The Secret to Falling in Love

I stood to the right of Amanda, and Gemma stood on her left. Amanda put her arms around our necks, and I held my phone at arm’s length and snapped a picture of us, our faces squashed together and smiling. I instantly uploaded it to all my social media accounts with the caption ‘Birthday fun’ despite the fact I was still in my dressing gown.

***

The cocktail bar was heaving, busy with groups of mixed-sex friends happily ignoring the other patrons, groups of single-sex friends who were – judging by their actions – aiming to change that fact, and us. I wasn’t sure about us. My mojito was just coming to its sugary end when Amanda appeared with a bottle of wine. ‘Thought we would try this. I’m assured it’s good stuff; 2010 was a good year, or so I’m told.’ The girls had really spoilt me tonight. I was lucky to have such wonderful friends.

Gemma was busy messaging someone on her phone and didn’t acknowledge the wine, which I thought was a bit rude, and out of character. I wondered if everything was okay.

‘Aww, thank you, Amanda,’ I gushed, overcompensating for Gemma’s indifference. As Amanda sat down, stumbling slightly on her heels, Gemma stood and wandered off without saying a word.

‘Where’s she going?’ Amanda asked.

‘Not sure, toilet probably?’ I guessed. ‘Let’s get cracking on this wine. You brought it just in time.’ I smiled, holding up my empty mojito glass.

By the time Gemma came back I felt too drunk to ask her where she had been. Instead I pointed at the wine bottle, which had about a quarter of the wine left in. ‘Get a drink,’ I slurred. I looked at my empty glass. ‘It must be very hot in here, as my wine appears to have evaporated!’ There was no way I’d drunk that much.

I excused myself and staggered into the cramped and clammy ladies’ toilet. I stumbled as the room began to spin. Clutching the sink for stability, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The unflattering neon lights highlighted the dark bags under my eyes and faint lines on the sides of my nose that had secretly etched their way across the bridge without me noticing. My blonde hair looked lank and yellow, but I was too drunk to care.

As I let go of the sink, the room spun by in a whoosh. It was too much for me. My stomach lurched. I ran into the toilet cubicle just in time to throw up before everything went dark.

Chapter Four

Horizontal lines of red and white lights from the passing traffic streaked slowly past the window, distorted by blobs of rain. Every drop made a light thud when it hit the glass. The evening sky had deepened to an inky black; passers-by were warmly wrapped, dashing to escape the wet winter weather.

Yawning, I’d decided it was time that I too made a move to brave the elements, but I was having motivational issues since that meant leaving the snug and cosy little Piccadilly coffee shop. Staring at my laptop, I realised I’d done very little work, which was what I’d gone there to do in the first place. I was due to get some freelance work over to a client the following morning, which I’d put off in light of my birthday.

Instead, I’d been distracted by a ‘flash sale’ email and treated myself to a couple of new going out tops, which I’d probably send back. I glanced around, looking at the other patrons; a trendy young couple sat opposite one another, engrossed not in each other but by whatever they were independently glaring at on their phones.

I’d only noticed because I’d been avoiding my own phone, which was excruciatingly difficult but Amanda and Gemma had taken great pleasure in uploading some embarrassing pictures of me onto all kinds of social media after the previous night’s foray into the realms of good wine. It did make me think, though, how lucky the couple sitting nearby were to have each other – yet they didn’t seem to notice or care. I wondered if I’d be like that if I fell in love. I hoped not.

On the next table sat a handsome man, probably a similar age to me, wearing a dark suit and sporting a head of admirably thick chestnut-brown hair. He was staring intensely at a laptop. His eyes followed every line, his brow furrowing every now and then, and I wondered if I’d looked the same moments earlier scouring half-price clothes.

The rest of my coffee shop reconnaissance produced similar results: parents talking on their phones with their children pacified by cartoons administered via tablet; lone patrons on laptops or smartphones; friends texting other people whilst ignoring their actual company. It was actually quite astounding, even though I knew I was just as guilty of the same things – the number of times I’d sat with friends failing to acknowledge a word they’d said because I was checking my retweets or likes.

I wondered what people did before we could take the internet everywhere with us. Maybe I’d been stuck in a rut for so long – observing people through technology, watching happy families develop through the window of social media, focusing so hard on developing my own online profile – that I’d forgotten to focus on my real self. I made a mental note to be more present.

After a windswept journey home, I collapsed on the sofa and switched on the TV with the intention of having some downtime. Keanu Reeves greeted me in a long black trench coat, gun in each hand, dodging bullets in slow motion. The Matrix; gosh, I’d not seen that film in a while. It was cutting-edge back in the day.

I remembered queuing up at the cinema to watch it with Amanda and her boyfriend at the time, a very acne-ridden Dave somebody who smelt musty. I was a gooseberry even back then. I snuggled into the corner of my sofa and switched to plus-one so I could cut in earlier to watch Neo battle suit-wearing agents, in the name of nostalgia.

***

I was actually excited as I waltzed into my editor Dee’s office the following morning and placed my article on her desk. As a columnist for NorthStyle magazine, I was tasked with discussing the everyday issues affecting the modern thirty-something city dweller. Recently, however, I’d been devoid of inspiration.

Then, after my coffee shop observations and movie night, it had hit me. We were actually living in a real-life, Morpheus-free Matrix. Every day we were plugged into a virtual world without the need for reality. We could do everything virtually: shop, study, socialise, see the world, get political, be heard, even hire a virtual personal trainer. We could be anybody with Photoshop or avatars. No more awkward silences in a social situation, no more struggling to butt in to a group conversation, or biting your tongue so as not to upset anyone – just tweet.

Even old-fashioned bullying had gone digital. Okay, so we weren’t wired in and stored in pods like in the movie, but most of us had taken the blue pill to avoid reality. Making conversation, controlling the children, learning, accessing knowledge, news, entertainment, diary-keeping, dieting, dating . . . The list went on, yet it was all a Matrix, a way to avoid real-life challenges.

Unlike in the movie, we were able to opt out yet appeared compelled to stay. We think that as humans we control computers, but were computers starting to control us? People have long sought escapism through daydreaming, books, movies, videos games, alcohol, drugs. Was this just the modern way?

I had spent most of the night thinking through these questions, tossing and turning, my brain unable to switch off. Why do we feel the need to escape – is our world that dark? Are we becoming too distracted by technology to really live? In the end I got up and wrote about it, eventually developing an article for the magazine.

I’d witnessed the transformation in myself; no longer was I the outgoing sociable type I’d been in my twenties, the problem-solver or general knowledge know-it-all. I was a node feeding off the internet, seeing only what I wanted to, accessing information when I required it – live-streaming with little need for memory. A digital utopia distracting me from what perhaps was a miserable, lonely life.