Pieces of Work

I'm reading Melissa Febos' Body Work currently, the one where she advises to only include people in your memoir if 1) they have proofread it before it is published and 2) you have a good lawyer.

I may just be kidding (lightly) about the lawyer part, but Febos discusses in great, painful detail how including people in your memoir can be dicey. They may disagree with your version of events. Febos' main point is that everyone has their own version of events.

I have a friend, let's call her Magdalena (that's the first thing I'm doing, at least - renaming her). She invited me to her birthday party, we were close, -ish. We texted, she seemed excited to get to know me. I was excited, too. We went rock climbing together and she was waiting until we met up again for us to get our rock climbing memberships and continue to go rock climbing together.

Here's the other thing: about me, at least. I may or may not do some light "social media stalking" from time to time. But let's rename that, too. I did some "research" into this girl. We had plans to hang out today, and I texted her this morning about meeting up. I was also curious to see if she exists online. She does.

Yesterday, this girl posted on her public Facebook page - which I found merely by searching for her first name - that she went rock climbing and "finally" got her membership - but with another girl.

She took forever to get back to me this morning, so much so that I asked if she'd like to reschedule our meet-up. She agreed - without offering any follow up times that she's free, which is very uncharacteristic of her.

Here's where I want to be careful: especially with social media, there is very infrequently a putting of "two and two" together organically. What I mean by that is, assume nothing is a direct result of your findings, and feelings about those findings.

I'm sure she isn't "replacing me", or trying to snub me. But it certainly seems that way.

And here's where I tie this back to my intro. I would actually welcome her feedback on this piece, to see what she's really thinking and feeling about me. But it's always a gamble including someone in your writing. She may silently blink, then once again and then three times, and wonder what the ____ drugs I'm on.

I could also ask her directly, obviously, what she feels.

But that would be too easy, and wouldn't that implicate me? I did some light research. I suppose I could also send her a friend request, but wouldn't that also be too easy?

So where am I going to end this piece? What is my conclusion? My conclusion is not that I should hire a lawyer. My conclusion is that we obviously should jump to conclusions based on social media findings.

And that our version of events is not fact. It is a perspective.

Or so I tell myself.