Why am I still friends with him on Goodreads?

I thought one of the perks of dating some one who doesn’t have social media is that when it ends you not only don’t have to erase them from any thing but also don’t have to unfriend them. They essentially leave no mark at all.

Goodreads is arguably the most under appreciated form of social media. Constantly flying under the radar it’s a place to impress others with your superior intellect, validate your hot take on the latest NYT best seller, and just generally judge everyones taste in books.

I love Goodreads. My camera roll is full of books I stumbled across but didn’t buy because I already have three thousand books at home that I haven’t even started, or worse started and then forgot about.

It indulges both my need for organization (all my must-reads neatly categorized) and my slightly judgemental side (she is reading that?!omg)

So naturally I felt both attacked and slightly panicked when I saw one particular name in my newsfeed. Why on earth am I still friends with him on Goodreads?

I didn’t think to delete him when we stopped seeing each other. But suddenly there it was. My one last connection to him.

Whats app messages archived. Numbers deleted. And then he pops up in my Goodreads. Of all places.

It didn’t end badly just awkwardly, so why would I delete him.

I should delete him.

And yet I can’t. I sat in front of the screen with the mouse hovering over the unfriends button but I never pressed it. Instead I went to his profile and read his reviews of books.

It’s odd to think but severing this one last connections feels like a real goodbye. Never mind that we haven’t spoken in a year. I avoided my favourite bookstore for months. Felt anxious about going to those museums weeks later.

I was so afraid of accidentally seeing him. But at the same time I can’t get rid of the one last connection we have.
I stare at my computer screen at three am having just updated my profile and I can’t help but wonder if he’ll see it and what he’ll think.

My mind is overloaded with everything that could have been. I what-if for hours. What if I had done some thing differently. What if I was smarter. What if I was prettier. Was I too needy, too clingy. Would we be weathering this pandemic together? Laughing at memes and mourning the winter we never got, the snow we both loved so much? 

I finally got rid of that slightly bent umbrella that he’d tease me about but always use because he never had his own. Yesterday I successfully picked a ripe avocado at the store, all on my own.

Its in moments like these, when I am sitting in my childhood bedroom late at night during a global crisis that it really hits me. The depth of the loneliness I feel. That new boy I met isn’t texting me back and this Toledo song isn’t helping.

So If I unfriend him, I am really locking that door. One that was closed any way. I am deleting the last of the evidence that some one once cared for me.

and thats all I ever wanted.