Together Forever: "Here Are Your Photos From One Year Ago Today"....
Rot in hell you piece of arse.
Some break-ups are messy, dramatic and honestly absolute fucking shit. They cost you every bit of strength and energy. And no, you do not want to stay friends. So, you take all your old pictures and burn them to a smelly, black, ugly paste and move on… that is until you make an uncontrolled swipe right on your iPhone and you end up on that “left-from-home-screen”-screen and stare right at your past.
What was clearly invented to remind you of fun times, laughs and “Oh my god!”-weekends creates a real visual problem for everyone who doesn’t live in a candy cotton world. Just imagine you come out of a long relationship, so you have tons and megatons of pictures of your ex on your phone…the chances of seeing their face whenever you go left from your home-screen are pretty damn high. Sure, sometimes it helps you relive the highs of June 2019… but it also helps you relive the bad times. The very, very bad times.
The sofa is yours. The table is mine.
Even if your break-up was a very grown-up respectful one - the kind where you do stay friends and visit each other at the new apartment (and even bring salt and bread) - it can still hurt to be reminded of an old life, including all the things that come with it every time you swipe; to be reminded of everything you could have done and of who you could have been… A cool couple, maybe even a family?
That “could have, should have, may have“ life is always just one swipe away, constantly knocking on your door, not letting you off the hook. Moving on? Almost impossible. Your past self is always present, ready to bum you out – it’s a dangerous game, especially, if you have a new someone in your life. It’s like walking around with a loaded weapon that can go off anytime and it most likely will in the most unexpected moment. All it takes is one wrong swipe.
The fear of falling back into the past is what I call: Swipephobia.
Swipe and your new lover has a 50-50 chance of seeing you drunk with your friends or a lovely portray of your ex. Preferably naked, Harry Goldenblatt style (or whoever you find dangerously hot). Or maybe you’re not naked, but you are standing next to your ex, with lust in the eyes, glowing with love and admiration. What a lovely thought. Not.
What to do with the masses of pictures?
The cloud creates a whole new set of break-up questions like: shall we both delete each other?
Sure, you could, but wouldn’t that mean deleting a part of you too and what about the pictures that show them, but also other friends? You can’t just throw the whole gang under the bus. Even worse, what if you have a family? Delete your kids? Impossible.
So what about just accepting it? Embrace it as part of your history, take another megaton of new pictures and wait years (!) till the old ones slowly fade out? Maybe – but you are aware that the same shit is happening on their phone. One swipe and swoosh, there you are, stuffing your face, looking grumpy as fuck, laughing like a horse, walking like a duck, drunk as fuck. Yes, Swipephobia isn’t a one-way-street, it is happening on all screens. Your past is holding you hostage. Remember that stupid picture that they took last summer, or the one before, the one that made you say: “ooooooooohhhh my gawd, please delete that!“ – that picture is now living rent free in their cloud, ready to pop up any second of any day. Preferably while they are next to their new special person. A flawless someone, of course. So really, how can we deal with this? What to do in the age of the cloud?
Let’s try conscience swiping.
You land on an old picture, let’s say a good one, one from happy times, breathe in and out, take a good look and make some mental notes on what was good. Journal it down. Suck up the good time energy: the fact that you had a nice sunny day, the fact that you had a great pasta, nailed your winged eyeliner, that fact that you had a good conversation, that you enjoyed being in that place, at that time, with that person. This is the opposite of sad nostalgia, this is about reliving and storing the love, not for each other but for your younger self. Try to tap into that. Not with the eyes of an ex-lover, but with the eyes of a friendly observer. Damn! That was a nice holiday. And yes! They were a snack. Swipe into the pleasure. After all, knowing that you were there once, should be a reassurance that you can be there again. In the sun, holding hands with, being in love.
But what about the bad ones you may ask, the pictures that make your heart ache? The ones from that night you had a horrible fight, the holiday you realized that the love is gone, the fake smiles. You just do the same: breathe in and out and remind yourself that NOW you are not in the same place. Past-You was hurt, Now-You knows better. You are older and wiser – ok, at least you are older. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to force you into toxic positivity. Not at all.) Sadness and anger need a space and an old picture can be the perfect channel for it. So, if you see their stupid face and it makes you angry say it out loud: Fuck you! Fuck you for having ruined my night, fuck you and your fucking fucked up smile, I’m over it. Ok, maybe don’t do this while on public transport – but do it.
Love, learn or delete?
Love, learn or delete? Here are the three categories that should help you decide on what to do with your images.
Category one: the bliss. A moment in your past life so good that you can de-couple it from your feelings for your ex. That’s a keeper.
Category two: the teacher. This is about a time you weren’t happy but you needed to go through it to be here now. Keep it too. It’s a good reminder to not fall into the same trap with someone else.
And finally, category three: the trash. Just delete it. Be angry one last time and then: delete it. If you think of the cloud as an extension of your brain, heart and soul it’s time to take out the trash (Patrizia Gucci accent, banging your little spoon against your espresso cup obligatory).
Your cloud, your rules.
But wait, what about the images on his phone? Right. Grow some tits and just forget about them. Harder than it sounds but remember that that sun burned, crossed-eyed person with ketchup on their chin isn’t you. It’s just a snap, from another time, another life and it holds no power over you.
Dear fucking cloud, you got to listen.
This invention feels like one that they really should have asked if we wanted.- especially considering the amount of power it has to shove a bad memory down your throat BUT we cannot control the cloud and it’s very strange algorithm (and the weird music), so we need to accept it.
That is until the algorithm grows and AI learns to “blind” some photos of our choice and stop them from turning up on the screen. It doesn’t have to be forever. Maybe we start with “blind for 6 months”. The engineers behind that cloud monster must have exes too, right?
But as for me - until I have a perfect solution, or accidentally date someone from Apple who loves me enough to invent the AI technology - I will train my thump to swipe left. Exclusively.
Written by Jeanette
Sketch by Maya Darli @a__d__I
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