Twitter and a Parable

I have recently become a more devoted Twitter user. Follow me. I'm funny. And thought provoking.

Occasionally, on late nights when for whatever reason I am procrastinating getting into bed, I wander onto my popular trend links on Twitter. The trends that always seem to catch my eye have nothing to do with #TimTebow or #NASCAR. Rather, it's the trends that capture the essence of a human life. The ones that allow tweeters all over the world to anonymously and even cryptically express the inner workings of the soul.

Perhaps this is where my love of psychology and fascination of the way human beings work kicks in, but I have noticed a few things. More than half of the tweets I read have to do with companionship, relationships, triumphs in love, lovers lost, lovers found and the occasional broken heart threatening to go viral.

One of the fist trends I ever read was #LateNightThoughts. After some quick calculations, I determined that nearly 87 percent of all the tweets had to do with another person for whom the tweeter had feelings for. Now, I will admit to my thoughts turning to someone I found interesting when the night has settled in and my evening is winding down. However, in some odd way, I thought I was alone in that. Not so. Perhaps this is what we all long for, though few are brave to confess. Admittance makes you weak, vulnerable and alive.

This statistical analysis turned my thoughts to a dear friend of mine. We'll call him Chase. All Chase has ever wanted in his life is to love a woman who loves him in return. We have spent many a night in my overheated, musty apartment discussing his love triangles, and a seemingly never ending circle of girls who can't seem to reciprocate his feelings for them.

I listen, I learn and I offer what menial advice I have to give to my friend. I pretend to be an expert. And I am— when it comes to other people's lives. Each and every night Chase and I discuss his love life, I find myself saying these words: "Just tell her how you feel."

Then the "what if" game ensues.

What if she thinks I'm creepy?
What if she doesn't reciprocate?
What if she doesn't want to be friends any more?
What if it ruins everything because it wasn't the right time?
What if I hurt my pride?
What if I break my heart?

To this twisted game, I offer two "what ifs" of my own.

What if she felt the same, and you wasted one of the greatest opportunities of your life in telling her?
What if she didn't? What's the worst thing that could happen? You'd move on?

We discussed this more at length. I have found that among a student enrollment of over 15,000 dating is a topic that is never void of timeliness. This topic is everywhere.

Finally I came to a conclusion: Wouldn't it be great if two adults, regardless of how the other felt, could act like adults, and talk about their feelings openly with one another. Wouldn't that just be nice? But this is rarely the case. Instead, we result to cryptic Facebook statuses, vague text messages, misunderstood instant messages and the occasional anonymous Twitter updates.

It's enough to make you pull your hair out. Maybe one day we will all grow up and learn how to talk to each other as adults.

But for now, there's always social media.