Love From the Group Chat
A Valentine’s Day love definition, plus two new pieces
Anybody who knows me knows I’m a loner. Always have been. Since I was a kid: I hated group projects, loved to sit in corners and read, preferred one-player video games, and generally liked to do things by myself. There are a number of reasons for this (some of them traumatic) but as an adult I’ve come to realize that even if this is an inherent characteristic of mine, there’s still a part of me that, like all humans, needs the balance of interaction with other humans in order to feel like I’m actually a part of this world and this whole thing isn’t just a simulation.
It’s funny how your brain can convince you solitude is a superpower right up until the moment it starts feeling like you’re watching life through a glass screen.
Most days, I can get enough of that real world grounding from my wife, who is the only person I’ve ever known who I can be around all day and still want more of.
But I also have my friends and family, most of whom I regularly interact with through group chats.
Which is to say, I spend a lot of time texting things to my peeps.
Writing, in other words.
Jokes. Life updates. Rants about society that accidentally turn into essays.
And it’s because of those regular interactions that I find out certain things about myself that I wouldn’t know from just me observing myself.
Like, for instance, apparently my wife and all my friends can tell when I’m working on a new novel—as I am right now, Book of Aces, the sci-fi one I keep mentioning which will be ready to shop around by this summer—because, according to them, my text messages start sounding like Shakespeare and a thesaurus had a pretentious baby.
I don’t know how I feel about that characterization.
But it’s interesting every time the people I care about notice something about me that I don’t notice about myself. Surreal even. But also pleasant in a way that feels constructive, on a philosophical level. To know with certainty that I exist as a presence in real life, and I’ve put enough of myself out there that the people who care about me can tell when my mind state has shifted by something as subtle as a few new synonyms.
I also love that I notice the same things in them, too. The small tics and rhythm changes.
There have been a lot of definitions of love put out there.
I think I’m going to use that one as mine.
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.
Here’s what I’ve put out since last time.
New since my last newsletter
1) “The Rapture (Part 1)” (The Lark — fiction / serial)
When a Miami deacon vanishes mid-sermon, believers call it the rapture. But a data nerd and an FBI agent see something else in the sky.
Read:
https://medium.com/the-lark/the-rapture-part-1-7737120b31eb?sk=535e8c0e5d2ef2e13c8c14f8d89aaac4
2) “The DUI That Sent Me Back Behind the Bar” (Writers’ Blokke — narrative nonfiction)
From Johnny Rockets to B Dubs, tracing my life through restaurant eras and the resets they forced.
As always, check out the main page here:
https://patrickandersonjr.com/
Thanks for reading and sharing.
— P