"My Bad – Let’s Definitely Catch Up Soon!": Or, the Art of Combating Fremdschämen

Category 2: People You Actually Do Want to See, But Not Enough to Work Your Plans Around. We’ve all made enthusiastic wall posts to this effect: “OMG we’ve got to catch up!!!!” But excessive exclamation pointing cannot mask the fact that neither of us really means it. It’s just what we say, because our feelings fall somewhere in that murky territory between loathing and adoration. So the Category 2 strategy is to issue an obligatory post right before or even during the trip: “Hi, I’m in town and would love to see you – how’s 5:54 to 6:03am Thursday morning?” (Maybe if you’d been a little cooler about the time I borrowed your beige sweater and spilled Merlot down the front you’d get a better time frame.) The beauty of this arrangement is that we both know the deal, can save face by making half-hearted attempts to meet up, and feel okay when they inevitably don’t pan out. Bam!

The other advantage of being Category 2 is knowing that you’re not Category 3: People Who Only Find Out from Facebook that I’d Visited Their City and Feel Legitimately Insulted They Weren’t Notified. Again, save us all the embarrassment and don’t post something like “I can’t believe you were in town and didn’t let me know!” Don’t take it personally, it’s just that you were low-priority and I had to risk you not noticing or caring that I'd been in town. I’m actually saving us both from the inevitable awkward silences that would outweigh any decent “over coffee” conversation. I mean, it has been several summers since our eight-week internship, and even then all we ever talked about was whether or not anyone actually has photocopied their own ass, and what they did with the copies.

However, if we bump into each other at a bar, I will be genuinely stoked. We’ll laugh and hug and reminisce about the time in sophomore year that you got food poisoning after drinking the melted fro-yo that had been sitting on a sunny windowsill in the lounge for a full month on a dare. But if this kind of kismet is meant to be, it will be. Best not to force it.

Now. If in spite of my advice and the panicked cries from what remains of your dysfunctional filter you insist on making the awkward wall post, know that any response you get will be a lie. Possibly about how I lost your number (please don't then point out that it's posted in your profile). Or had heard from Nick who saw Karen at Mike’s wedding last month that you were doing a stint as an organic tree nut farmer in Argentina after you’d been laid off from your M&A consulting gig (okay, now that you mention it I guess I do recall that you have a severe peanut allergy). But these delicate white lies are planted like so many clover in the harsh landscape of truth to be a salve to whatever ego sting you may be experiencing, and to save everyone else from fremdschämen. So please don't pluck them out and throw them back at me for all to see. It just makes it harder.

Instead, post this thought on your own brain-wall: “Oh well – guess it was an oversight.” Then let it go. Don’t subject yourself to looking through the rest of the trip pictures. The ones that look really fun and don't involve you at all. It's all part of the elaborate social waltz choreographed to prevent ugly feelings and psychological discomfort from penetrating our happy little friendspace. (Or is it mybook?)

So the next time someone creates an event you blatantly weren't invited to, or cancels your date for a family emergency while simultaneously Tweeting "out with the girls!", buck up and get on with doing what these sites were created for: reading about what's on your former summer camp bunk mate's NetFlix queue and losing yourself in your third complete stranger's photo album. Because who knows, "Turkey Time! First Thanksgiving with The In-Laws" just may be the over-shared, guilty pleasure of your night. And there's nothing to be schämen about there, fremd.